


Whack A Mole

by Brynn_Jones



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Betrayal, F/M, Friendship, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 01, alternate universe - no aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-02 13:46:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11510664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynn_Jones/pseuds/Brynn_Jones
Summary: After a close brush with death, Phil Coulson finally gets his own team and his dream plane. Soon, he finds his dream turning into a nightmare. Will he be able to navigate in a world full of danger and betrayal? Or will it all just tear him apart?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A short play on what the first season would look like if there were no superpowers or aliens. This is an experiment of sorts :)  
> Warning: I changed a lot of details and even made up some of them as well, so don't be confused :)

Phil Coulson straightened his tie as he inspected his appearance in the fogged up mirror in his bathroom. He looked pretty good for a man who had survived his own death, he thought. He had a few wrinkles here and there and his hairline was undeniably receding but other than that, you wouldn’t even guess that just two months ago he had been stabbed in the chest and then died several times on the operation table before the good doctors finally managed to save his life. It was a wonder what a couple weeks relaxing in Tahiti could do for your health.

“Ok,” he nodded at his reflection, “let’s do this.”

Today was his first day back at work after two months of convalescence and he had a lot on his plate. Director Fury had left him with detailed instructions to put together a team of people that would make up a specialised mobile unit, something which was a completely new and revolutionary concept within S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson had wanted something like that to happen for a long time now, but it was going to be a lot of work.

Glancing at his wristwatch, Coulson sighed and steeled himself for a long day full of interviews. According to Fury’s instruction manual, in order to complete his team he needed to find a good weapons engineer or at least a technician, a doctor, a combat specialist and a pilot. He had heard about a pair of brilliant scientists - one a weapons and technology specialist and the other a biochemist - who would be perfect for his unit if he could get his hands on them, so the S.H.I.E.L.D. labs was where he was going first.

Checking his reflection one last time, Coulson left his bathroom, took his briefcase, slipped into his shoes and left the apartment. He had to hit the road as soon as possible if he wanted to avoid the morning rush hour on his way to the headquarters - he was looking at forty minutes of driving through the busy streets of Washington as it was.

Thankfully, once he made it to the science department, it only took him a few minutes to find the correct lab. “Fitz-Simmons?” he asked with a raised eyebrow as he entered, eyeing the man and the woman in labcoats.

“Fitz, engineering,” said the woman, pointing at her colleague.

“Simmons, biochem,” informed him the man as he pointed back at the woman, not even lifting his eyes from the gadget he was studying.

Oh look, thought Coulson in amusement, he had the pleasure of meeting a double act. Doctor Jemma Simmons, originally from England, was a S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy prodigy. She didn’t look like much - thin girl with a pale complexion and mousy brown hair - but behind her intelligent eyes hid a brilliant brain that earned her two Ph.D.’s in fields he couldn’t even pronounce. Doctor Leopold Fitz had a similar story - born in Edinburgh, he moved to America when he was fifteen after he got recruited by the Academy. His slightly neurotic and perhaps even autistic behaviour didn’t appear to stand in the way of his genius on the field of weapon and high tech development.

Coulson turned to Simmons who, unlike her colleague, stopped working in order to pay some attention to him. “Doctor Simmons,” he addressed her, “my name is Agent Coulson.”

Jemma giggled. “Oh, we know. We all heard about what happened with the…” she trailed off uncomfortably, pointing at his chest. “We’re glad you’re back on your feet, sir,” she finished sheepishly.

“Indeed,” he smiled at her. “Let’s see how you feel after I tell you why I came here.”

The other scientist spoke up. “You’re here to recruit us for your department,” he said in a thick Scottish accent. “You wouldn’t be the first to try…  _ or _ the last,” he finished, finally glancing up from his work, a sardonic look on his face.

Coulson gave him his most professional smile, the result of years of dealing with the blessedly ignorant public. “Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ll be the last. My instructions come from Director Fury himself. You are to be a part of my new team - a specialised mobile unit.”

Fitz blanched. “But, but… we’re not field agents! We need a good cozy lab and a non-stressful environment to do our jobs properly - flying bullets don’t make for very good working conditions.”

“This isn’t a combat op, Doctor Fitz,” Coulson assured him, though he was pretty sure he was lying to the poor guy. If his team was just supposed to gather intel like Fury had said, why would he ask him to hire a combat specialist? The team was ideally supposed to only step in when absolutely necessary, but given the recent rise in terrorist attacks all around the world, Coulson knew the operation might end up being different.

According to Fury, the organisation responsible for this increase in violence was their old enemy Hydra, a Nazi-born terrorist organisation which was first established in 1925. It had taken a long time to regroup after its fall in 1946 but has apparently become active again in the past months. What Fitz didn’t know though, wouldn’t hurt him.

“Come on, Fitz,” said Simmons excitedly, “this could be a real adventure for us! Look at how pasty we both are - a bit of fresh air might do us some good.”

The Scotsman grumbled. “Coulson doesn’t exactly look tanned either,” he protested. “Besides, we _need_ _a lab_ to work, we can’t do our science just anywhere.”

Coulson was ready for that objection. “You’ll have your lab, doctor,” he promised. “Our team will have a use of a pretty great airplane - enormous, modern and fully equipped with a high tech lab. You’ll like it, I swear.”

“A plane?” questioned Simmons breathlessly.

“Yeah, officially it’s called the Airborne Mobile Command Unit,” he explained, “but I call it the Bus.”

The scientists turned to look at each other, staring silently for a couple minutes, seemingly communicating without words, before Simmons turned back to him. “We’re in,” she told him.

Coulson grinned. “Great. Go home and pack your bags as soon as possible, we’re leaving before the end of the week.” And with those instructions, he left. It was time to find himself a combat specialist and he knew just the person who would help him. Why would you want to go through piles and piles of personnel files if you had Maria Hill to do it for you?

Agent Hill was Director Fury’s right hand. Anything the gruff man didn’t want to deal with, she did for him. Her responsibilities included everything from security management to scouting new talent and it was the latter that Coulson was currently interested in. If anyone knew where to find a good specialist, it was Maria.

Knocking at the door of her office a few minutes later, Coulson mentally ran through what he wanted to say. First, he would compliment her on her appearance to sweeten her up, then he would mention his long recovery in Tahiti to play the sympathy card and lastly, he would beg her to recommend someone for his team.

“Enter,” came a voice from inside the office, interrupting Phil’s thoughts.

He opened the door and stepped inside. “Agent Hill,” he greeted the tall woman who was sitting behind her desk.

“Agent Coulson,” she acknowledged him. “How was Tahiti?”

Phil smiled. “It’s a magical place.”

Maria nodded, face serious. “I bet.”

Coulson took a deep breath. “Can I just say that you look very nice today? Did you do something different with your hair?” he asked, eyeing her usual ponytail with pretend interest.

“Grant Ward,” she exclaimed, shoving a folder into Phil’s hands.

He was taken aback. “What?”

“Grant Ward,” Agent Hill repeated herself, pointing at the file that Phil was now holding. “Trained by your old friend Garrett. He’s a combat specialist, speaks eight languages, his interrogation skills are first-rate and his deception skills almost unmatched. The only thing that speaks against him is that he doesn’t play well with others, he’s a bit of a lone wolf.”

Coulson opened the folder, encountering Ward’s personnel file inside. He stared at the guy’s photo. He was your typical tall, dark and handsome. “And he’s willing to join my team?” he asked.

Hill shrugged. “He doesn’t really have a choice. Still, try and don’t piss him off as soon as you meet him, would you? Just because he can’t refuse, doesn’t mean he can’t make your life living hell.”

“That’s encouraging,” Phil muttered.

Maria waved him off. “He’s waiting for you in the conference room, now shoo!”

Agent Grant Ward was even more handsome in person than his photo suggested. Phil briefly wondered if the agent’s good looks were the reason Hill had chosen him but immediately banished the idea - Maria was a professional and wasn’t easily swayed by a pretty face. “Agent Ward?” Coulson asked the man sitting at the conference room table.

The other man nodded in recognition. “Agent Coulson, what a surprise.”

Phil raised his eyebrows. “A surprise?”

Ward shrugged. “I thought you were dead.”

Ouch. So that’s what Hill meant by saying Ward didn’t play well with others, thought Coulson. “Yeah, well,” he gave the younger man an ‘aw shucks’ smile, “I pulled through.”

Ward just offered him an unimpressed look.

Coulson decided to end their small talk and cut to the chase, “Do you know why you’re here, agent?”

“You have a mission for me,” guessed Ward.

Phil smirked. “Sort of. You’re being reassigned to my team.”

The cocky attitude quickly trickled out of the handsome agent. “What? You can’t do that! I’m a specialist - I go in alone and get the job done, I’m not a team player.”

Coulson nodded. “I’m aware, Agent Hill has warned me about you. In fact,” he told Ward, opening the personnel file Maria had given him, “I think she drew a little poop under  _ people skills _ . That’s bad, isn’t it?”

The specialist looked indignant. “I- that’s not…”

Coulson closed the folder. “Frankly speaking,” he told Ward, “I don’t really care what you have to say, you’re coming with me no matter what. You’ve been reassigned and you have a duty to S.H.I.E.L.D., however I’d much rather get along with you than fight you every step of the way.”

Ward scowled, his face a picture of annoyance.

Phil tried a different approach, “What does S.H.I.E.L.D. mean to you, agent?”

The younger man began reciting, “S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for Strategic Homeland-”

“That’s not what I asked,” Coulson interrupted him. “What does S.H.I.E.L.D. mean to  _ you _ ?”

“It means we protect people, we’re the line of defence between them and anything that threatens their safety. Anything dangerous, anything the public is not ready to hear about.”

Coulson nodded. That was a good explanation. S.H.I.E.L.D., which had been founded in England in 1935 as a reaction to Hydra’s rise during WW2, is a special law-enforcement and counter-terrorism agency. Its aim is to protect the general public from threats that they don’t even know they’re facing, which consequently means that most of its dealings are done under the veil of secrecy and the majority of its files are so confidential that even S.H.I.E.L.D. sometimes doesn’t know what’s in them.

“That’s exactly what my team will be doing. We’ll be the first to respond to any reports of suspicious terrorist activity and our aim will be to gather intel and sort it.”

Ward nodded. “So it’s a specialist team?”

Coulson grinned. “No, you’ll be the only specialist on the team.” At Ward’s horrified look, he added, “What? You said you were used to working alone, didn’t you?”

And with those parting words, Phil left the conference room. He had one more stop to make before reporting to Fury. Making his way into the Administration's Department, fondly called the Dungeon, Coulson steeled himself for his meeting with the last member of his team. He had met Melinda May almost twenty years ago at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. She was a tiny little Chinese girl with a serious face and the two of them became immediate friends. They worked their way up the ranks together, working cases as a team and never separating for long - until three years ago, that was. Until Bahrain.

Entering the Dungeon, Coulson looked around the countless office cubicles before his gaze settled on the small form of his friend.

“Agent May,” he greeted her as he walked up behind her.

“No,” she said immediately, not even turning around.

Coulson smiled slightly, it appeared she had already been informed about his team. “May,” he said again.

“I’m not going back in the field,” she told him, still not looking up.

Phil glanced at her desk, frowning at the countless piles of paperwork that almost swallowed his friend up. “Yeah, because you’ve got such a nice setup here,” he said sarcastically. “You ever thought about adding a moat?”

She shot him a cold glare before returning her eyes to the file she had been reading. Not in a joking mood then, noted Coulson.

He tried a different approach, “I just need you to drive the Bus,” he told her. “Maybe some on-site supervision, that’s it. This isn’t a combat op.”

Her eyebrows twitched as if she had suppressed the urge to raise them. “Then you don’t need me,” she said.

“I do,” he assured her, voice softer. He let the words hang in the silence between them for a minute before pleading again, “May.”

“You’re really just asking me to drive the bus?” She asked hesitantly, finally looking him in the eye.

Coulson smiled at her. “I’m not really asking,” he shrugged, already walking away because he knew the deal was sealed. “But it’s a really nice bus.”

He didn’t hear the suffering sigh Melinda let out but he knew it was there.


	2. Chapter 2

It was 6:35 on Thursday morning that found the whole team loading their stuff on board the modified Boeing C-17 that Phil nicknamed the Bus. It had been majorly modified - it had been fitted with six engines that could move in a 180 degree angle, a fully equipped lab for Fitz-Simmons, an interrogation room, six bunks, a lounge room and even a stocked minibar. Fury had really outdone himself.

“Hey! Be careful with that!” exclaimed an exasperated Scottish voice from somewhere behind Phil. He turned to look what was going on and saw a couple of airport technicians helping Fitz load up some of is equipment - they weren’t apparently being gentle enough and the engineer wasn’t happy about it, going by the ranting. “The contents of that case are worth millions of dollars, thank you very much!”

Simmons joined in, “Really, Fitz, we should probably do this ourselves. I mean, we’ve still got about twenty minutes before we’re supposed to take off, so we’ve got enough time to move everything properly.”

The Scotsman nodded, frantically checking his precious cargo. “Yeah, yeah, twenty minutes, right.”

“You could sound a little more excited, you know?” the biochemist chided. “We’re going on an adventure! Besides, this plane is awesome.”

“Sure,” shrugged the male scientist, “for a flying deathtrap.”

Simmons gave him a pitying look. “Oh, Fitz. It’s going to be fine.”

Coulson smiled at their banter. It was nice to see the dynamic between the two brainiacs. He was torn out of his musings by a sarcastic voice next to him, “This is a joke right?”

Phil glanced at Ward.

The young specialist continued, pointing at the scientists, “I mean, those two? Have they even been in the field before?”

“No,” answered Coulson simply.

“You’re kidding,” hissed Ward. “How am I supposed to do my job if I have to babysit two lab rats?”

Coulson was inadvertently saved from answering by Agent May who came out of the Bus at that moment, sliding her assessing gaze over the rest of the team silently. She walked up to Coulson and handed him a file with their flight plan, so he could sign it.

“You all set?” he asked her, quickly scratching his signature in the designated space.

May just looked at him, not saying anything. Right, realised Coulson, that had been a stupid question - she wouldn’t be having him sign off on a flight plan if she hadn’t been all set.

“Well, here you go.” He smiled at her, returning the folder.

May nodded before turning away and heading back to the cockpit. “Wheels up in ten,” she announced so that everyone would hear her, ignoring Fitz’s outraged shouts about how they should be allowed more time, since they’re already leaving a day early.

“Is that… who I think it is?” asked Ward, staring after the Chinese woman in wonder.

Coulson grinned at him, shrugging. “She’s just the pilot.”

Ward raised his eyebrows. “ _ Melinda May _ is just a pilot,” he enunciated in disbelief. “Come on, sir, what game are you really playing here?”

Phil ostentatiously glanced at his watch. “Now, I have to go and sort out my office before we take of. You heard the woman, ten minutes.” And with that he left Ward standing outside and hurried onboard the Bus.

He hadn’t been completely lying to the handsome specialist, he really had some things to sort out in his office. Originally, they were supposed to leave on Friday but then an unregistered laboratory blew up in New York on Wednesday night, killing seven people, and here they were, leaving a day early to go and check it out.

According to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s intel, the most suspicious thing about the incident wasn’t the fact that the illegal lab apparently worked with large quantities of military-grade chemicals. The reason for Coulson’s team being called was that a few seconds after the explosion, a black man crawled out of one of the lab’s windows and proceeded to climb down the facade of the house, quickly fleeing the scene - which wouldn’t be at all suspicious if the lab hadn’t been on a nineteenth floor of a modern skyscraper and the facade wasn’t plain and flat with almost nowhere to hold onto. Someone had even managed to capture the seemingly impossible feat on video and published it on the internet. People were even calling the guy Spiderman, which was ridiculous.

Now it was up to S.H.I.E.L.D. to not only find out how the guy managed something so inconceivable, but to also convince people that what they had seen was actually pretty normal and therefore nothing to be afraid of. A secret terrorist lab that ran illegal experiments in the middle of New York would just create panic, whereas a secret shooting of a new TV show that went wrong would get a couple raised eyebrows at best.

Rubbing his hand across his face and gathering all of the reports that NYPD had sent S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson left his office.

“Wheels up in two. Lock it or lose it,” came May’s voice a few seconds later over the Bus’ intercom.

He could hear Fitz muttering something about stupid pilot lingo from the direction of the lab and grinned to himself. This was going to be fun. Coulson made his way into the Bus’ Command Center, which was really just a room with a large table and an even larger computer screen. He used the intercom to tell the rest of the team to gather in the Command Center as soon as the plane takes off - sans May, of course, who had already been briefed since she had to be on the stick.

Exactly two minutes later, like clockwork, the Bus’ wheels left the ground and the two scientists and Ward all piled into the room. Coulson had already put all the pertinent pictures and videos up on the big computer screen and spread the paper files across the table, so he was ready for them.

“We’re going to New York,” he started off before going on to explain what had happened. His team members listened attentively to the whole tale.

“But how is that possible?” asked Simmons after they finished watching the video of ‘Spiderman’ climbing down the building.

Coulson shrugged. “No idea. For all we know he could’ve had some sort of climbing gear that we just can’t see on the video.”

“Or,” said Simmons with a serious face, “he has supernatural powers.”

Ward shot her an evil look. “Right, because that’s realistic. I thought you were supposed to be a scientist.”

“I am,” agreed the biochemist. “What I meant to say  _ is _ , that the explanation might be something that we don’t understand yet. It would be foolish to reject an idea just because it sounds ridiculous - just a 100 years ago, people thought atoms didn’t exist.”

Everyone was silent for a beat, before Fitz suggested, “Maybe he’s a monkey.”

Simmons snorted. “Well, that’s just ridiculous.”

The engineer’s face acquired an offended look. “What? A monkey could easily scale that building, monkeys are awesome.”

Coulson sighed. “People,” he addressed them. “Let’s leave all the theories to  _ after _ we’ve processed the scene. For now, let’s presume the guy was just a very talented rock climber.”

The scientists didn’t look happy he spoiled their fun but they did quieten. Ward pointed at the blurry picture of the ‘Spiderman’, saying, “We should find him. He might be dangerous.”

Phil nodded. “I agree. It’s not going to be easy though, none of our facial recognition softwares managed to come up with a match yet and none of our New York assets recognised him.”

Ward scowled. “We’ll find him,” he promised threateningly. “And then I’ll deal with him.”

“Hold your horses, Ward,” Phil told him with a placating gesture. “We don’t even know what connection he has to the lab.”

The young specialist shrugged. “He ran out of a terrorist-ran lab, I say he’s involved.”

Coulson let out a long breath. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Just remember who gives out orders around here, ok?”

An hour and a half later they landed in New York. May had brought them down slowly in an impressive show of vertical landing and soon they were driving their two SUVs through the busy streets towards the crime scene. When they arrived, they were immediately let inside the damaged building by the local PD officers. Coulson sent May and Ward to have a look around the perimeter and see if they came up with anything suspicious, while he himself took Fitz-Simmons upstairs, so they could inspect what remained of the lab.

“Pfew,” the biochemist uttered when the three of them arrived at the appropriate floor. “Whatever exploded in here definitely did a good job of destroying everything.”

Coulson nodded. The whole place looked like the inside of his garden grill - black char stained the walls and burned rubble was scattered across the floors. “Well, get to it,” he ordered his scientists, motioning towards the piles of charred lab equipment. “There’s certainly a lot to do and we need anything that could point us towards what they were experimenting on in here.”

Fitz nodded his assent. “Whatever explosive they used, the blast seems to have originated here,” he explained as he stood roughly in the middle of the room, “and then moved outwards in this direction.” As the engineer was talking, he walked over to the blown out windows, waving his hands around.

“So it was a directional blast?” asked Coulson, earning himself an impressed look from the Scotsman. “Does that mean it was intentional?”

“Not necessarily. We will know more once Simmons analyses the chemical compounds of the explosive.”

The scientist in question looked up from where she was playing with her vials. “Already on it,” she assured them. “I’m taking samples from all around the room - it might help us figure out what they were working on.”

Coulson nodded. “You do that. I’ll have a look around to see if there’s anything salvageable.” He slid his eyes across all the rubble, searching out anything that looked either important or at least not completely destroyed. Five minutes later, he came upon a round metal casing that upon closer inspection turned out to be a security camera. The circuits looked fried to his untrained eye but Fitz was a genius, so perhaps he could fix it.

“Found something,” he announced, lifting the surveillance camera in his hand. “Looks deep-fried though.”

Fitz hurried over, grabbing the damaged object out of Phil’s hand. “Doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “This model has flash memory in case of blackouts. With a little luck, we might get some pictures from before the blast.”

Phil raised his eyebrows.

Fitz went on to explain, “And by ‘luck’ I mean unappreciated genius, of course.”

The engineer’s self-appreciation was interrupted by his colleague's exclamation, “Whoa, that’s interesting.”

Coulson walked over to her, eyeing suspiciously the worrying number of test tubes in her hands. “What is?” he asked.

“I am detecting large quantities of corticosteroids, anabolic steroids and a compound that seems to be derived from testosterone, though I’m not sure about that yet.”

Coulson nodded despite not really understanding much of what the biochemist was talking about. “What does that mean?” he asked.

Simmons shrugged. “That someone in this lab wanted to be a bodybuilder? I don’t know.”

Coulson opened his mouth to comment when he got interrupted by May’s entrance. He smiled at her, asking, “Finished?”

She threw him a deadpan look. “All clear,” she reported. “Nothing on this guy’s identity. No one had anything pertinent to say.”

Phil could only imagine what the taciturn agent would deem pertinent - May usually thought that any words other than ‘duck’ or ‘shoot’ were unnecessary. It’s what made her such a good specialist, she didn’t waste time by useless chit chat and instead just did whatever needed to be done.

“And Ward?” asked Coulson.

“Went on to check out the rooftop,” answered the Chinese woman, crouching down to inspect a piece of rubble.

“What’s that?” Phil queried, eyes narrowing at what looked like charred insulation wool.

“It looks like the insides of a punching bag,” noted May.

Coulson halted. “What? What would a punching bag be doing in a lab?”

The specialist shrugged, having no theories. Coulson figured the woolly material had to have come from somewhere else.

In the end, the team hadn’t found much. Outside of the surveillance camera and a curious amount of steroids, there were a few damaged centrifuges, a heavily-dented accelerometer, a lot of shattered glass and what looked like an almost intact dentist chair. The rest of the rubble was practically unidentifiable.

“Let’s head back to the Bus,” Coulson suggested once Ward returned from his rooftop excursion, which hadn’t brought them anything useful either.


	3. Chapter 3

Once back on the plane, things got even more complicated. As soon as Fitz-Simmons entered their lab, a security breach alert started blaring on their computer. The engineer immediately went to work on securing their system, murmuring about ‘bloody hackers’ and ‘sodding activists’ all along. It took him almost fifteen minutes to tighten their firewall and by that time, beads of sweat were collecting on his pale forehead.

“Everything all right?” asked Coulson when the Scotsman finally looked up from the computer screen.

The man nodded. “For now,” he said, then sighed and continued, “The system on this plane seems to be much less secure than what we have back at the Hub, I can’t think of a reason why.”

Coulson frowned. “That’s weird.”

Fitz shrugged. “I’m sure Director Fury would be able to explain. All I can do for now is try and always be a step ahead of whoever it is that is good enough to breach our firewall - despite what I said, it’s still pretty secure.”

“Could you find them? The hacker, I mean.”

The engineer furrowed his brows. “Maybe?” he said uncertainly. “I’d have to let them through the firewall though.”

Phil bit his lip. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Fitz snorted. “No, but if I take any sensitive files off the mainframe, it shouldn’t be too dangerous. Then we let the hacker think we haven’t noticed his next attack and hopefully determine his location.”

Coulson nodded. “Do it then,” he told the scientist before leaving the lab to sequester himself in his office. He had a lot to think about and he wanted to be alone. Steroids, hackers - this case was slowly starting to feel like something that was above the capabilities of his brain capacity.

He spent the next half an hour reading through his files, jotting down notes in the margins and drawing stick figures on a spare piece of paper when his attention wandered. Then, just as he was starting to go cross-eyed from all the reading, his intercom came to life and a Scottish accent came through.

“I found him,” the voice crackled. “I found the hacker.”

“Great, where is he?”

“Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - somewhere around 5th Avenue to be more specific,” answered the engineer. “I’ll be able to determine the exact coordinates once his computer in range of our radar.”

Coulson smirked. “Good job, Fitz. I’ll tell May to change course for Pittsburgh.”

“There’s more, sir,” the Brit continued. “The hacker’s cryptographic signature connects him to the video of our _Spiderman_ as well as several flagged posts. He seems to be a part of a group called ‘The Rising Tide’ - they publish confidential information under the guise of freedom of speech.”

“Great,” Coulson replied sarcastically. “Anything else?”

“No, sir, that’s all.”

Standing up from his seat, Phil decided to go and inform May of the change of course in person. Of course he could easily just tell her through the intercom, but he was a little boy at heart and he really wanted to see the cockpit.

“Can I come in?” he asked May as he opened the cockpit door.

The Asian didn’t acknowledge him, which Coulson took as an assent and entered the small room.

“This is cool,” he commented, looking at all the buttons and levers around him. “Isn’t it cool?”

May threw him a slow, unimpressed look.

“Right, uh… change of course. We’re headed to Pittsburgh to pick up our hacker friend,” he explained as not to let the uncomfortable silence stretch too long.

May blinked in acknowledgment, pressing a button on her headset. “S.H.I.E.L.D. Control, Charlie X-Ray Delta 23215 request,” she said into her microphone.

“CXD 23215 go ahead,” came the muffled answer.

May spoke again, “Requesting change of course, heading thirty-five.”

“Affirmative change of course, heading thirty-five. Maintain 1500 until Green Hills, then change course to zero to avoid Washington County Airport restricted airspace.”

“Roger that,” finished May as she adjusted the flight controls and started turning the Bus around.

Phil was quiet as not to disturb the woman while she was maneuvering, just watching her impassive face in silence. He was really glad his friend had agreed to join his team, even though he hadn’t given her much choice, it was nice to see a familiar face.

May turned to him, raising her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

Coulson smiled. “No, I’ll leave you alone,” he told her, getting up from the co-pilot seat and moving to leave the cockpit.

“It is,” she called after him when he was almost gone.

He turned back to her with a confused expression on his face but she wasn’t looking at him. “What?” he asked.

“Cool,” she elaborated.

Phil grinned.

 

Once they arrived in Pittsburgh, it was only a matter of minutes to find the exact location of their hacker friend - their satellite pictures showed an old van parked in a parking lot by the 5th Avenue. Phil chose Ward to accompany him and together they went to pick the troublemaker up.

As they approached the van, they heard a young woman talking.  _ “... and the federal agencies are lying to us, trying to keep us from finding out the truth. But they won’t be able to keep their secrets forever - we will join together, rise up and uncover the dirty truth about what is really happening. We are the Rising Tide and we will dig out the truth.” _

Phil raised his eyebrows at the monologue - the woman inside was obviously broadcasting her little speech for anyone who would listen - before gesturing to Ward. The young specialist opened the sliding door of the beat up van, revealing a petite brunette girl sitting inside the vehicle. She had clearly been speaking into a microphone attached to her notebook - thus proving Coulson’s broadcasting theory - but now she was in shock, sitting unmoving in her chair.

“Hi,” said Coulson, watching the frightened girl.

She didn’t move, as if hoping they’d go away if she didn’t acknowledge them.

“You know we can see you right?” he asked jokingly when almost a minute went by and the girl didn’t even blink.

She slowly turned to look at them. “Uh… what’s up?”

Ward didn’t give her a chance to say anything else before he took a black fabric bag and pulled it over her head. “You’re coming with us,” he told her, tugging her out of the van and shoving her into the back of their parked SUV. 

Phil hadn’t exactly been ready for that to happen, having never told Ward to use the bag, but he recovered quickly, collecting the girl’s electronics and loading them into their car. Then, closing the van back up, the three of them left the parking lot and drove back to the Bus.

The hacker ended up in their interrogation room with Coulson and Ward standing outside the door, arguing.

“It’s a standard procedure,” hissed Ward, waving the fabric bag around. “I just followed the standard-”

“That’s not how we do things here,” interrupted Coulson. “We don’t just kidnap people.”

Ward snorted. “And how exactly do you suggest we should’ve brought her onboard? She hacked a federal organisation, she was hardly going to come willingly.”

Phil gestured wildly with his hands. “You don’t know that, she was scared!” He paused, sighing. “Next time you follow my lead, understood?”

The specialist pressed his lips into a thin line, nodding his head but not meeting Coulson’s eye. “Understood, sir.”

“Great, now let’s go inside and find out what that girl knows.”

“Yes, sir.”

The two agent entered the interrogation room, Coulson sitting down across the hacker and Ward leaning against the wall to the girl’s right - a classic ‘good cop, bad cop’ set up.

Phil took a good look at her, noticing for the first time she looked half-Asian. Taking a breath, he began, “Do you know why you’re here?”

The girl snorted, shrugging her narrow shoulders. “I don’t know, outdated car registration?”

Coulson tilted his head. Where had that confidence come from? The last time he knew she was a wreck. “Try ‘hacking a federal organisation’,” he suggested. “That’s a federal offence, I trust you know what that means.”

She looked taken aback and Coulson saw a glimpse of her earlier apprehension. She managed to pull herself together pretty quickly though. “Why don’t you tell me what it means?”

At this point, Ward jumped in. “That means that if you don’t cooperate, you have every chance of spending the rest of your life in the brig.”

This visibly frightened her as she hesitantly looked up at Coulson. “What do you want to know?” she asked quietly and Phil almost felt sorry for her. The girl couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, still just a kid really, and she had just been kidnapped by a couple of men in black suits that threatened to lock her up and throw away the key.

“Well,” he began, his voice acquiring a softer quality. “You could start by telling us your name.”

She cleared her throat. “Skye.”

Ward leaned towards her. “What’s your real name?”

She shot him a look. “It’s just Skye.”

Coulson nodded. “That doesn’t matter right now. We need a different name. What can you tell us about the man people are calling ‘Spiderman’?”

“What makes you think I know that?” she asked, her eyes shifty.

Ward folded his arms across his chest. “Well, you made a little mistake. The phone you filmed the explosion with had the same cryptographic signature as a few of The Rising Tide posts.”

She smirked, though Phil could tell she wasn’t really as confident as she was trying to seem. “Yeah,  _ was _ that a mistake?” she asked. “Or am I now sitting in the center of your super secret headquarters? I managed to get inside.”

Ward scowled. “I don’t know why you’re feeling so smug about it, you’re not going to see anything else than the inside of your cell.”

She snorted. “Please. You got nothing on me. I’m sure you’ve discovered by now that you can’t beat the encryption on my equipment.”

Coulson cleared his throat. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean we got nothing. We have evidence you were on the scene right before it went up in flames. Can you tell me what my team is going to find out? Did you blow it up?”

“No. Did you?” she retorted.

Coulson shook his head. “That’s not our style,” he told her, even though it most definitely _ was _ their style.

Skye just scowled.

Phil knew he had to try a different tactic. “Look, that man you are trying to protect is in danger. If you didn’t blow up that building, then somebody else did and that somebody else is going to be after your friend. Help us find him before anything happens to him.”

It was just a shot in the dark, of course. Coulson had no reason to believe that Spiderman was in any danger, in fact it was more than likely that he was a terrorist, but he figured that playing the sympathy card couldn’t hurt.

Skye was silent for a few minutes, before sighing loudly. “Ok,” she muttered. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but you have to promise to help him.”

“Of course,” agreed Coulson, ignoring the irritated look of his colleague.

“His name is Mike,” Skye began. “I didn’t know him before the explosion, I was in New York to investigate that lab. We heard that S.H.I.E.L.D. was keeping tabs on it, so we figured it was somehow important. I was doing surveillance when it exploded.”

Coulson had to suppress the urge to grit his teeth. It wasn’t easy to hear that a small activist group was investigating a terrorist lab that had been under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s surveillance without them knowing about it.

“Anyway,” the young hacker continued, “I searched him out afterwards using my facial recognition software and-”

“How?” interrupted Ward. “We tried but you couldn’t really see the guy’s face on the video.”

Skye grinned. “I have a second video taken from a different angle.”

Coulson nodded. “Go on.”

“I found out his name was Mike Peterson, a good guy. He said there was a lab in that building, where they tested various substances on people for some sort of research. He only joined because he needed money to support his kid - he’s a single dad.”

“So he was in the lab at the time of the explosion?” asked Phil.

“Yeah, he said he had just been receiving another dose of something called TMNT2 when it happened.”

It all made sense so far, thought Coulson. Mike must’ve been sitting in that dentist chair when the bomb exploded and that’s how he survived - the chair had to have been shielded from the blast since it had been nearly undamaged. “Anything about the bomb?” he asked.

“Not really,” Skye shook her head regretfully. “He said there was another guy in the lab - another test subject - and he was really angry, but that’s all. He didn’t see the bomb.”

Coulson stood up, his head beginning to throb. “Thank you for your cooperation, Skye. We’re going to find your friend and help him,” he assured the girl. It seemed as if the guy wasn’t a terrorist after all.

“Uh, wait!” she called after him when he turned to leave the interrogation room.

“Yeah?”

“The drug they had him take makes him really strong,” she warned him. “That’s how he managed to climb down the side of the building. And I told him he should hide from the men in suits because they were going to hurt him, so… be careful.”

Coulson nodded. “We will.”

 

Skye’s words were soon confirmed by Simmons, who finally finished her analysis of the substances she had found at the exploded lab. “It’s a very potent and volatile steroid serum,” she explained to Coulson. “It gives the subject a boost of an almost inhuman strength. The effect is similar to a flood of adrenaline during a fight or flight reaction, with the difference that the effects last longer as it is much more slowly degradable.”

“What does that mean?” asked Phil.

The biochemist gestured wildly. “It means that it takes days before the serum loses its effects once injected. Mike Peterson is currently a superhuman.”

Fitz grinned at that. “Cool.”

Ward, who had been quiet until then, scowled at the engineer. “No, that’s not  _ cool _ . That’s really really bad. We need to stop that guy before he hurts anyone.”

Fitz opened his mouth to protest but Simmons interrupted him. “Agent Ward is right, Fitz,” she said with sympathy in her voice. “The serum is highly unstable and causes severe fluctuations in the subject’s brain chemistry. The people that have been taking this drug are going to be very volatile and unpredictable. I wouldn’t be surprised it it was one of the subjects that had detonated the bomb.”

Coulson sighed. “What about you, Fitz? Have you cracked the encryption on our friend’s laptop?”

The engineer shook his head. “Afraid not, she’s really good.”

“Ok, people.” Phil clapped his hands together. “Ward, you go and ask Skye to unlock her computer. Fitz, you keep searching the satellite images for any traces of Mike Peterson. Simmons, you try and find a way to stabilise that serum.”

He got a couple of ‘Yes sir’s as his team went to do as they were told.


	4. Chapter 4

Coulson was sitting in the lounge, flipping through his folders again and listening to Fitz-Simmons talking in their lab. Skye had told Ward that her laptop’s encryption was tied to the GPS coordinates of her van, so Coulson had sent May to accompany the girl back to 5th Avenue so she could decrypt her files. Ward was resting in his bunk, presumably sulking and the scientific duo were hard at work downstairs.

“...very volatile withdrawal symptoms,” Simmons was saying. “So waiting for the serum to lose its effect might be even worse, Fitz!”

There was some mumbling to be heard from the engineer, before the Englishwoman picked up again, “I need something to stabilise the brain chemistry as well as something that’s not going to cause a heart attack. It’s impossible!”

“... figure it out … how about…” Fitz’ mumbling was much less distinguishable since the man’s voice wasn’t as piercing as Simmons’.

“That wouldn’t work, Fitz. A human dose of tranquilisers wouldn’t work and anything else would just kill him.”

Coulson shook his head. He really hoped Simmons was going to be able to come up with something that worked because if she didn’t, they might have to shoot Mike in order to contain him.

As if to prove his point, his earpiece suddenly came to life and May’s voice came through. “Coulson,” she said, sounding out of breath.

“May?”

“He took Skye,” she reported.

Coulson winced. Mike Peterson was shot up with steroids and if May wasn’t ready for it, she had no chance. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

She didn’t answer in either negative or affirmative, just growled at him, “We’ll deal with that later. Right now, we need to figure out where they went - they took the van.”

Coulson nodded, already making his way downstairs to the lab. “I’ll have Fitz tracking the van, you all right to drive?”

“I’m fine,” she spat before turning off her earpiece.

Phil sighed. “Great.”

Five minutes later, Fitz was following the van through satellite images, while Ward was cleaning out his rifle. Coulson raised his eyebrows at him. “This is a last resort sort of thing, Ward, do you understand?”

The specialist didn’t look at him. “Yes, sir.”

“Ward,” he said again, more forcefully this time. “I’m serious. You don’t shoot unless I tell you to, understand?”

This time, the younger man looked up. “Yeah, I get it. I just think that we shouldn’t risk innocent lives over some junkie nobody. He’s dangerous.”

Coulson narrowed his eyes. “Nobody is nobody. Besides, he might have some intel on the terrorists, we want him alive if possible.”

Their argument was interrupted by Fitz’ shouting, “They stopped at a train station! We got them, Coulson!”

“All right, people, move out! You have anything yet, Simmons?”

“Not yet, sir. But I’m close, I swear!”

“Close is not good enough,” he told her, turning to the rest of his team. “Ward, you’ll take point once we get there - don’t shoot until I tell you. Fitz, you keep us posted. I’m gonna call May to meet us at the station.”

 

The station was crowded. Ward was right - a lot of people could be hurt if they didn’t manage to contain Mike. Ward had taken point on the second floor walkway, where he had a good view of the whole hall, while Coulson looked around for Mike. Mike, who was currently dragging Skye through the throngs of people, a little black boy on his hip. That must be his son, deduced Coulson.

“Mike Peterson!” he called out.

“Get out of my way!” the agitated man called back. “You’re just here to kill me.”

Phil could see a frightened Skye furiously shaking her head. “No, Mike! They want to help you,” she said.

Mike scowled. “You said the guys in the black suits were going to hurt me!”

Coulson stepped carefully forward. “We’re not here to hurt you, Mike. I promise.” People were noticing something serious was going on and started quickly dispersing, clearing the immediate area. Coulson carefully pulled his gun out of his holster and laid it on the ground. “Look!” he called out, “I’m unarmed.”

“You think that means anything?” Mike snorted. “You have snipers aiming at my head.”

Before Coulson could say anything else, May’s signal went off in his ear.

“I’m here,” she reported.

“We’re at the north entrance, May,” he told her quickly, hands loosely at his sides and eyes not leaving Mike. Skye was struggling against the hold he had on her arm. “Let me go, I promise they’re gonna help you!”

Mike snarled at her. “What? They’re your friends now? You said they were dangerous.”

As if on cue, a shot rang out, hitting Peterson in the shoulder. The black man spooked, running towards the back of the train station hall and leaving Skye and his son standing in the middle. Coulson looked up angrily to where Ward had set up a sniper post. “Ward!” he shouted, “I told you to hold fire!”

“Wasn’t me!” came the quick answer in his earpiece. “We have a third party here.”

Looking around, Coulson noticed a brunet man clad in black running across the second floor walkway, a rifle in his hands.

“I’ll take care of him,” said Agent May who had appeared behind Coulson, her eyes trained at the shooter as well. She didn’t even wait for him to agree, taking off after him.

Coulson made his way over to Skye and the little boy. “Go outside,” he told them. “Our SUV is parked in front of the entrance, get in and lock the door.”

Skye nodded and quickly made her way outside.

“Mike!” Coulson called out, searching for the man with his eyes. “That isn’t us shooting, those are the people from the lab!”

Another shot rang out and this time the bullet embedded itself somewhere in the ceiling. Phil couldn’t see the shooter anymore but, knowing May, he was already being dealt with.

“I swear, Mike!” he called out. “We’re not here to hurt you. Just come with us.”

The cornered man appeared from somewhere behind the remaining crowd. “You’re lying!” he snarled. “You’re just like them, you just want to use me. But I’m not gonna let you! Either you let me go or you’re gonna have to kill me!”

Coulson shook his head. “Or you can let us help you, Mike. I know you’re not a bad person.”

Mike stepped forward, clear of the people behind him.

“I have a clear shot,” Ward informed Phil through his earpiece. “I can take the shot.”

“Negative,” Coulson murmured back, then spoke louder. “Come on, Mike. Your son is already safe, come with us and we can help you.”

The mention of his son only served to agitate him more though. Mike went red in the face and started shouting, “Ace! Ace! Where did you take my son? Bring him back!”

“Mr. Peterson,” Coulson said calmingly, ignoring Ward who was constantly begging him to let him take the shot. “He’s safe, I promise.”

“Bring back my son or I’m gonna start killing people!” shouted Mike, flailing his arms around.

“Let me take the shot!” whispered Ward.

“Be reasonable, Mike!” called Phil.

There was a beat of silence and then Mike suddenly dropped to the ground, unmoving. Coulson paled. Surely Ward didn’t disobey him and shot the man? Looking up towards the sniper, he saw the young specialist looking confusedly around.

“Sir?” came a hesitant voice from behind him and Phil turned around only to come face to face with Simmons.

“I… what was that?” he asked her, eyeing what looked like a weird paintball gun in her hand.

She hesitated. “This is a tranquiliser gun,” she explained shakily. “I shot him with a quick-acting nervous paralysing agent. I, uh, have to check but he should be fine.”

Coulson let out a long relieved breath. “Thank god, Simmons,” he told her and, picking his gun back from the floor, went to check on Mike. The man looked scared, eyes darting all over the place as he realised he couldn’t move.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Peterson, you’re safe now,” he told him as Simmons checked his pulse.

The biochemist smiled. “He’s going to be all right. I even made some progress on the stabilising agent, it’s almost ready.”

“Good,” acknowledged Coulson. “We’re going to need it once he comes back to himself.” He then stood up from where he had been crouched over Mike and touched his earpiece. “May?”

“Everything’s secure,” she reported.

“The guy alive?” Phil asked, only half-jokingly.

“Yes.”

Coulson nodded. “Bring him in.”

Once everything was secured, both Mike and their anonymous shooter escorted by a different team to be brought to the Hub and Ace taken away by social services, Coulson’s team gathered back on the Bus. Well, Coulson’s team and Skye.

“What is  _ she _ doing here?” asked Ward, arms folded across his chest and face scrunched up in a disapproving grimace.

“ _ She _ can hear you,” sassed Skye.

Coulson smiled secretively. “I want to talk to you in my office,” he told the girl. “Come on.”

Skye followed him up the stairs, a curious look in her eyes. “You’re not really going to throw me in prison, are you?” she asked him.

Coulson grinned. “Depends.”

She smiled uncertainly. “Uh, on what?”

“On whether you take the job I’m offering.”

She looked hesitant at first but when five minutes later she agreed to take the job as their computer expert, Coulson wasn’t surprised. It was a pretty good offer after all.


	5. Chapter 5

”Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.!” Simmons exclaimed cheerfully as Skye made her way aboard the Bus. The young girl had a small tote bag on her shoulder and a wide-eyed expression on her face. It hit Coulson again how young she really was and he felt a moment of doubt about his decision to hire her. He’d just have to keep her out of harm’s way.

“Hi,” she grinned at the team. “This plane is so cool.”

Ward rolled his eyes. “You should get settled, we’re taking off soon.”

“Oh, ok. Where do I put my stuff?”

“There’s only one free bunk left,” Ward shot back, before leaving the lounge room.

Coulson figured he’d have to have another talk with him. Ward hadn’t been exactly happy when Coulson added another civilian to their team - a sentiment that was also being shared by May - and he had been very vocal about his displeasure.

Fitz came to Skye’s rescue. “Here, let me help you,” he said excitedly, taking her bag for her. “Your bunk is right next to mine.”

Skye acquired an unimpressed face and Coulson grinned. The new team dynamic was going to be interesting, he thought.

May, who was standing next to him, looked at him impassively. “She’s a liability,” she said. “And a security risk.”

Coulson sighed. “I know, but she’s useful.”

The Asian pilot glared.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep her on the Bus at all times,” he promised. “She’s not going to get hurt.”

May nodded. “Good. As long as you don’t expect me to babysit.” And with those words, his friend left the lounge, heading for the cockpit. Take off was in ten and she had to get all the flight systems ready.

They had been called to inspect an 084 in Colombia - an 084 being an object of unknown origin - and Coulson was both excited and nervous at the same time. Excited - because an 084 meant the case was going to be interesting, and nervous - because it was their first mission with Skye on board and they were flying into a dangerous area that was controlled by  _ Aguilas Negras _ rebels.

Ward came back into the lounge area, a bottle of water in hand. “We’re locked and loaded,” he told Coulson.

“Great. Once we take off, gather everyone in the Command Center, we’ll have a briefing.”

“Yes, sir.”

Phil raised his eyebrows at him. “And stop frowning.”

Ward’s scowl deepened even more. “She’s a risk,” he complained.

“I know,” admitted Coulson. “But she can be seriously useful to us. She hacked our RSA implementation from an old laptop. Imagine what she can do with our resources.”

“I am,” insisted the specialist. “That’s exactly what I’m imagining during this frown,” he finished, pointing at his own scowling face.

Phil shook his head but anything he was about to say got interrupted by May’s voice coming through the intercom. “Take off in two,” the pilot announced. “Lock it or lose it.”

Skye, who had just came out of her new bunk, furrowed her brows. “Lock it or lose it? What does that mean?”

Fitz, who was following her like a lost puppy, jumped to explain. “It means there’s no going back now. May’s starting the takeoff maneuver.”

She nodded in understanding. “Cool.”

Fitz grinned.

 

They touched down in Colombia a little over seven hours later, May landing on the uneven terrain of Colombian countryside without a hitch. It was a hot summer day, the air humid and heavy. The team, sans Skye, were getting ready to disembark and take an SUV down to the archaeological site, where the 084 had been found.

“I still don’t get why we have to take the the two of them with us,” complained Ward, motioning towards Fitz-Simmons. “I could just go in alone, grab the 084 and bring it back. No fuss.”

Coulson sighed. “They need to inspect it first,” he explained. “It could be dangerous and we need to be able to manipulate it safely. This is exactly why I wanted them on my team.”

“Yeah but this place is dangerous. It’s crawling with rebels.”

Phil nodded in agreement. “I’m aware. That’s where you come in - you’re a specialist, do your job and protect them.”

Ward huffed but didn’t say anything else. The two men just watched in silence as Fitz-Simmons gathered their equipment, loading it into the SUV. May was already sitting behind the wheel, ready since she had no equipment to pack. She wasn’t even bringing a gun, Phil noticed.

The ride to the site was fairly quick, Melinda having managed to land as close to it as possible, and soon Coulson’s team was getting out of their car.

Ward immediately went to work. “There were tyre tracks about forty metres back,” he said. “I’ll check them against the site’s trucks - make sure we’re alone.”

Coulson nodded in agreement, turning to May. “What about you?”

The female agent inspected her surroundings. “Too much exposure here,” she noted. “I’m gonna find a different place to park.” And with that she sat back behind the wheel and drove away.

Trusting her judgment, Coulson didn’t comment and instead went to help Fitz-Simmons with their equipment. “Come on, let’s find the professor that had called us.”

The scientist duo nodded eagerly.

“I would love to see a capuchin in the wild,” disclosed Fitz as they walked. “Maybe even a Colombian woolly monkey.”

Simmons nodded in agreement. “Did you know Colombia has close to three hundred species of snakes? The shushupe has a fascinating venom - it’s neurotoxic, proteolytic  _ and _ hemolytic!”

“That’s fascinating,” replied Fitz, looking uncomfortable.

Realising she had frightened her friend, the biochemist put a calming hand on Fitz’ shoulder. “Oh, don’t worry. I’d be much more cautious of mosquitos - there’s no vaccine for Dengue fever.”

“Great,” was the engineer’s sarcastic answer as he watched a little mosquito buzz around them.

“Hey, bossman?” came Skye’s voice through Coulson’s earpiece.

“Skye?”

“Uh, I was just wondering. The people in this country are already dealing with rebels and the all the soldiers, should we maybe warn them about the 084? I mean, we don’t know if it’s not dangerous.”

Coulson shook his head. “Remember the panic when terrorists threatened to blow up a bomb during the finale of last year’s Super Bowl?”

“What? No!”

“Exactly. Because we kept it quiet and contained.”

He could imagine Skye scowling. “What am I doing then? What’s my job?”

Coulson noticed the archaeologist they wanted to speak to walking towards them. “Skye,” he spoke to his newest team member. “If any information gets out, I need you to create some kind of diversion. Put the public on the wrong scent.”

“So exactly the opposite of what I want to do.”

“Yep,” concluded Phil, smiling at the man who finally reached them. “Good morning, professor. I’m Agent Coulson with S.H.I.E.L.D., I understand you made a curious discovery?”

“Yes,” said the nervous man, “I don’t really know how to explain it. This temple dates back at least 500 years and it looked undisturbed when we set up camp here, but… well, the thing we found inside looks to be only about seventy years old.”

Coulson nodded. “Curious. Why don’t you show us where it is.”

“Yeah, sure. Come with me,” the professor beckoned them, leading the way inside the temple. In the middle of the stone artefacts lay a metal cube no bigger than a human head.

“The tyre marks belonged to the professor’s truck,” reported Ward, who had just rejoined them. “Do we already know what’s that thing? Is it dangerous?”

Fitz shook his head, pulling out a tablet and some other gadgets out of his case. “We don’t know, you need to give us some time.”

Ward folded his arms across his chest. “Well, we don’t have time. The rebels can appear any moment and decide to shoot this place up. If it was up to me, I’d just pick that thing up and bring it onto the Bus.”

The engineer snorted. “Of course  _ you _ would. A trained monkey could do that. But this is a delicate situation that requires a professional touch.”

“Well hurry up or I’m picking it up anyway,” sneered Ward before stomping outside again. Coulson followed after him, leaving the two scientists to inspect the 084 in peace.

Outside, May was already standing guard.

Ward walked up to her. “Where’s your sidearm?” he asked her.

She glanced at him. “If I need a gun, I’ll take one.”

The male specialist gave her something that might be considered a smile - if you were being optimistic. “Right,” he nodded. “I forgot I was working with the ‘Cavalry’.”

Melinda gritted her teeth. “Don’t call me that.”

Ward raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “Apologies. I’ve heard stories, about what happened in Bahrain, about you in action. You know, it was smart of Coulson to pull you out of retirement.”

May stayed silent, ignoring Ward’s words, instead eyeing carefully her surroundings. Figuring the two specialist had everything under control, Coulson went back inside the temple.

He turned to the professor, who was still standing off to the side. “Sir, I need you and your team to evacuate the site until we determine the risk associated with this object.”

The archaeologist nodded hastily and scarpered. A couple minutes later, Coulson heard the sounds of cars leaving the camp.

“Anything?” he asked his scientists.

Simmons narrowed her eyes at the piece of equipment in her hand - Coulson couldn’t even begin to pretend to know what it was - and said, “I’m getting some alarming readings of gamma radiation.”

Fitz nodded. “I think this might be a weapon. An incredibly powerful weapon for something so small and over seventy years old. Wonderful technology, really.”

“There’s some writing on this,” added the biochemist. “I think it’s German.”

Of course it is, thought Coulson as it all started adding up. “It’s probably a Nazi experimental weapon. After the war ended, a lot of Nazi officials ran away from prosecution and settled in South America and-”

His explanation was interrupted by a couple of loud thumps coming from the outside.

“What was that?” asked a frightened Fitz.

“Rebels?” guessed an equally rattled Simmons.

Coulson shook his head. “Not enough gunfire. I’ll go have a look.”

Outside the temple, Phil found an interesting scene - Ward and May in a standoff with a small group of camouflage-wearing soldiers. The young specialist was holding one of the soldiers in a chokehold, while Melinda was holding two of them at gunpoint - a firearm in each hand. The remaining soldiers had their guns aimed at the two specialists.

Coulson stepped forward. “Buenos dias,” he greeted them. “Soy Agente Coulson, estamos aquí en una cuestión de la seguridad internacional.”

A dark-haired woman dressed in camouflage appeared from behind the group of soldiers. “Coulson?” she asked.

Phil couldn’t believe his own eyes. “Camilla?” he grinned. Looking around, he motioned to her soldiers who were still aiming their guns at May and Ward. “Do you mind?”

Camilla raised her eyebrow, smiling back. “After you,” she suggested.

Coulson nodded and signalled his specialists to put away their weapons, then watched Camilla do the same to her men.

Camilla Reyes was an old acquaintance of his. They had worked together almost four years ago - an undercover op to bring the remaining living Nazi officers to justice. They had managed to find a couple Hydra posts in Colombia, Peru and Venezuela and destroy them but overall they hadn’t been very successful with most of the high ranking Hydra officers managing to flee before they could be captured. Coulson had had a suspicion that they had a mole in their midst but couldn’t prove it. In the end, the operation was called a bust and Phil had been ordered back to the States.

Coulson took it upon himself to introduce everyone, “Agent Melinda May, Agent Grant Ward this is Comandante Camilla Reyes. She’s with the Policía Militar de Colombia.”

Ward nodded. “I’ll go and let the geeks know everything’s fine.”

Camilla stepped closer to Phil, giving him a bright smile. “So,” she began, “I heard you’ve found a strange object on Colombian soil. We should have a conversation about how to proceed.”

Coulson shrugged. “Of course, but an 084 supersedes all national claims,” he reminded her.

“So there isn’t any chance we could keep the device?” she asked him.

“It’s not mine to give,” explained Phil. “But I’m sure we can find a way to resolve this respectfully and-”

His words were interrupted by the sounds of gunfire and the swish of bullets flying overhead.


	6. Chapter 6

“Rebels,” sneered Camilla, pulling out her gun and ordering her men to return fire with a shouted ‘fuego!’ Agent May was already shooting, the two guns she had stolen from Camilla’s soldiers clasped calmly in her hands, hitting her targets effortlessly. A second later, Ward ran out of the temple, also joining the fight. As for Coulson - he crouched down behind a boulder, gun in hand as he tried to aim. He wasn’t very successful, only hitting about half of his targets - damn it, he was rusty.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that May had disappeared somewhere - hopefully with some kind of plan in mind - while Ward was standing next to Camilla, shooting in the direction of the rebel army.

“Fitz-Simmons!” Coulson shouted, “Get the 084 and prepare to move out!”

“But, but… we haven’t finished with the analysis!” came Fitz’ voice through the earpiece. “We don’t know if it’s safe to move it yet, it might be unstable.”

Ward swore under his breath before running back into the temple. “I’m picking this damned thing up and we’re getting out of here, you understand?” he shouted.

“Whoa whoa whoa, you did no just do that!” complained Fitz. “It has a fluctuating power core, it can-”

“Science class over,” announced the specialist just as a loud roar sounded from somewhere left of the campsite. A couple seconds later, a black SUV drove into the group of rebels at full speed, running over couple of them and sending the rest flying. May, who was sitting behind the wheel, leaned over and opened the passenger door.

“Get in,” she shouted at Coulson and the rest of the team who were just leaving the temple. The scientists hurried over to the car, piling in the back seat, the 084 clasped tightly in Fitz’ arms. Coulson ran after them just as the rebels began firing at them again.

“There’s more of them over there!” shouted Camilla, pointing west. Her small group of men now stood back to back, taking cover behind the SUV.

“Follow us!” Phil called after her, seeing the apprehension in Reyes’ eyes at their situation. “Our plane can take ten more men,” he assured her.

He felt a bullet fly uncomfortably close to his ear as he hurried to duck into the SUV, heart beating rapidly. The second Ward got in as well, May sped off at a neck breaking speed.

Ward turned to her, breathless. “How fast can you get us in the air?”

“Fast,” was her short answer.

The car was shaking and swerving on the uneven terrain as Melinda gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“Slow down,” yelled Fitz over the sounds of gunfire that were still following them as both the Policía Militar and the rebels followed them in their own cars.

“Don’t,” Phil contradicted him. “Get us to the Bus as  _ fast _ as possible.”

“You don’t understand,” complained the engineer, panic in his voice. “This thing is highly unstable, it’s going to overheat! May, slow down!”

“Quiet!” shouted both Ward and May in unison.

“I can roll down a window!” suggested Simmons, hand on the crank of the door.

“Do not roll down the window!” ordered Coulson. The glass was bulletproof and currently the only thing protecting them from an onslaught of rebel bullets.

As the Bus turned up in their sights, Ward opened up the cargo hold using a remote control and May shot up the lowered ramp before stomping on the brakes violently, almost crashing into the glass wall of the lab.

 

Things happened pretty fast after that. Melinda ran up the stairs in the direction of the cockpit to get them in the air as fast as possible, while Ward started raising the ramp again. Skye ran in through the lab, asking about what was going on and Camilla’s men jumped out of their vehicles, running onto the plane, still returning the rebels’ fire.

“Vamos! Vamos!” Reyes was shouting as the Bus’ engines came to life and the whole plane began its vertical takeoff.

It was only when everybody was on board and the plane was safely in the air that they breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“What were you two geeks whining about in the car?” asked Ward, looking at Fitz-Simmons.

Fitz, still catching his breath, spoke up, “As I said before, the 084 has a high-frequency, fluctuating-”

“Fitz,” Ward stopped him. “In English.”

The Scotsman gave him an incredulous look. “Are you serious? I’ve explained it to you numerous times, using the  _ Queen’s bloody English _ !”

Ward sneered. “Yeah? Well, I use normal English - words like ‘run’ and ‘duck’.”

“Congratulations Agent Ward,” said Fitz sarcastically, “you managed to string a few words together in a sentence.”

Coulson gritted his teeth. “Hey!” he shouted at them. “Stop arguing and tell us what’s the problem, Fitz.”

The engineer took a deep breath. “As I was saying, this thing is unstable and could blow up any minute. If it does,” he paused, “it will take the whole plane down with it.”

Everyone who was gathered in the cargo hold went silent and took a step back, away from the Nazi weapon, as if that would make any difference if it decided to explode.

“Okay,” Coulson said slowly, “Fitz-Simmons, take that thing into your lab and try to stabilise it. The rest of you, feel free to settle down in the lounge room, there’s nothing else we can do now.”

Everyone agreed and the group of people spread out through the plane. Coulson himself headed for the cockpit, wanting to check in with May about their course.

“Hey,” he greeted her as he entered the small space.

She nodded in greeting, her eyes not leaving the horizon in front of her.

“Head for the Slingshot,” he told her, though he had the suspicion it was unnecessary - May knew the protocol.

The Asian pilot nodded and thinking he was being dismissed, Coulson turned to leave. May stopped him though.

“Do you need me for anything?” she asked.

Phil raised his eyebrows.

“We have a plane full of uncontained aliens,” she explained.

Coulson gave her a smile. “We’ll be fine.”

Melinda’s radio came to life, “Charlie X-Ray Delta 23215, S.H.I.E.L.D. Control, confirm entrance into restricted airspace.”

“Affirmative,” answered the female pilot.

“Are you familiar with the flight paths?” asked the operator through the radio.

May nodded. “Affirmative,” she repeated.

Coulson patted her shoulder. “I’ll leave you alone, so you can concentrate. I have to check on the device fueled by evil anyway, Fitz-Simmons have hopefully stabilised it by now.”

He left the cockpit, not waiting for an answer, and returned to the lounge room. A couple of Camilla’s soldiers were sprawled across the couches, nursing glasses of whiskey, while the Comandante herself was nowhere to be seen. Ward was sitting in the corner, flipping through a book and surprisingly tolerating Sky, who was chattering his ear off.

“We’re turning,” she commented as the airplane calmly changed course.

Ward nodded, lifting his eyes from the pages of his book. “We’re in restricted airspace, so we have to follow certain flight paths. This plane is capable of a fully automated flight, but May has to be on the stick herself today.”

Skye chuckled. “Lots of good lingo around here - ‘lock it or lose it’, May has to be ‘on the stick’.”

Ward twitched his lip in a half-smile. “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll pick it up,” the hacker assured him.

The specialist answered with a shrug, hissing under his breath at the movement. Skye noticed.

“You hurt?” she asked him, leaning forward in worry.

“It’s just a scratch, I’m fine,” he replied. “It wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have to babysit two civilians in a rebel-controlled area.”

“How so?” the young girl questioned.

Ward rolled his hurt shoulder carefully. “I’m a specialist,” he told her. “I go in alone, I get the job done and I get out. I’m not used to working with a team. The only person I ever worked with was my SO, Garrett.”

Skye raised a questioning eyebrow. “SO?”

“Supervising officer,” the specialist explained.

Skye frowned. “Well, I’m sorry you got hurt protecting Fitz-Simmons, but I think having a team is great. You get to cooperate with people and you don’t have to shoulder all the responsibilities alone. That’s why I like working with the Rising Tide,” she paused at Ward’s incensed look. “Don’t get pissy - all I wanted to say that it’s nice to have some help. That way you don’t have to come up with the whole solution, just a part of it.”

“Well, I was trained to be the whole solution,” Ward retorted, his tone suggesting their conversation was over.

“Phil?” came Camilla’s voice from behind Coulson. He turned around, watching her lean on the railing of the stairs leading up to his office. “Come join me,” she asked him.

Phil smiled, unsure, but followed the woman up into his office nonetheless.

“You have a nice set up here,” she commented when the door closed behind them.

He chuckled. “Yeah. It turns out that getting stabbed in the chest is a good way to get your dream plane.”

Reyes sat down on the edge of his desk, looking at him through her eyelashes. “Well, it’s certainly a step up from our living accommodations from when we were working together back in Peru. Though I don’t remember much working,” she finished coyly.

Coulson blushed. Yeah, there was that - he and Camilla had slept together a couple times back in the day. She didn’t use to be so straight-forward though. “And I don’t remember you being quite this direct,” he told her, a seed of suspicion settling in his mind.

Reyes shrugged, her eyes flitting towards the wall clock briefly. “We’re stuck above the clouds for the next few hours, we might as well enjoy ourselves. For old times’ sake. What do you think?”

Fuck, thought Coulson, a headache starting to bother him. May had been right. Steeling himself for what was to happen, Phil answered, “I  _ think _ that by now Ward had realised what you’re about to do and he knows that you have to eliminate May from the equation to have a chance. I  _ think _ he has about twenty seconds to get to her first.”

Just as he had expected, sounds of fighting soon reached their ears and Ward’s aggravated voice filtered through the door. Coulson ran out of his office to go and help but it was too late. Ward was still fighting, but Phil could see the live feed from the downstairs lab, where Fitz-Simmons were held at gunpoint by three members of the Policía Militar, and he knew they were screwed.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“For the weapon, of course. We were hoping to beat you to it, but you were faster. A thing like that can end the rebel uprising for once and for all.”

“You won’t get away with this,” grunted Coulson through his teeth.

“Just give up,” said Reyes. “Unless you want me to hurt your precious lab rats, that is. Are their lives really worth a weapon?”

Phil knew when he was beat. He raised his hands in surrender, letting the Colombian soldiers take hold of his arms and tie him up. Then he was led downstairs into the cargo hold along with Fitz-Simmons, Ward and Skye. The foursome were tied to the cargo door, while Phil remained standing next to Reyes.

“Where’s May?” he asked, a little nervous about what Camilla’s men did to his pilot. It wasn’t easy to take Melinda May down, since she was trained to fight until the very last breath, so the fact that there were no signs of an ongoing fight worried him.

“Don’t worry, Phil,” Camilla drawled out. “My men put her to sleep with some very powerful sleeping gas. She wouldn’t have noticed a thing before she fell asleep.”

As if on cue, two soldiers brought in May’s unmoving body, hands already tied behind her back, and dropped her carelessly on the floor next to Skye. Coulson winced in sympathy at the harsh landing, sure that May would have a couple painful bruises once she wakes up.

“What now?” asked Coulson.

Reyes smirked. “Now we wait for your HQ to call and ask about the change in course. You are going to tell them that everything’s in order.”

“Or what?” challenged Phil. “What if I just don’t confirm the new course? S.H.I.E.L.D. will just shoot this plane from the sky. That will take the weapon out of your hands.”

“Maybe,” shrugged Camilla, “but it will also kill your precious team and you don’t want that, do you?”

Phil bit his lip. As he had thought, he was screwed. He could feel the Bus turning, he could see the frightened faces of his team and he knew he had been outmaneuvered.

The radio came alive, “Charlie X-Ray Delta 23215, S.H.I.E.L.D. Control, confirm change of course.”

Coulson stayed silent and Camilla jabbed him in the ribs.

“I repeat, confirm change of course.”

Another jab to the ribs, this one harder, had Phil speaking, “Affirmative. I confirm the change of course. It’s gonna be clear skies from now on.”

“Roger that. Have a safe flight, Agent Coulson.”

Content that she had what she needed, Reyes turned to leave the cargo hold. She put one of her men by the stairs as a guard and ordered the rest of them to go with her. She turned to Coulson one last time with a smirk on her face. “It was nice to see you again, Phil,” she told him and then left, the door sealing itself behind her automatically.


	7. Chapter 7

Coulson walked over to his team. “You guys all right?” he asked them, concerned with how scared they all looked. Well, all except Ward - he just looked pissed.

“This wouldn’t have happened if I had learned Kung Fu,” muttered Fitz self-deprecatingly.

Simmons tutted in sympathy. “Well, I shouldn’t have pushed you into the field in the first place. Professor Vaughn was right, you weren’t ready.”

Ward decided to join the pity party, “It was my job to make a proper threat assessment. It’s my fault.”

Coulson sat down opposite his team, sighing. “Stop blaming yourselves, guys,” he told them. “If anyone’s responsible, it’s me. I brought them onto the Bus.”

Skye made a frustrated sound. “This wouldn’t have happened if Agent May wasn’t on the stick,” she complained. “She would’ve busted out some of her ninja know-how.”

Simmons turned to the younger girl with a surprised look. “Agent May? No. No. She transferred from administration.”

Fitz nodded in agreement.

Skye’s face was full of disbelief. “Well, I saw her  _ destroy _ a guy last week at the train station, so…” she trailed off.

The two scientists looked at Coulson in confusion, but when he didn’t offer any explanation, they simultaneously turned to Ward.

The handsome specialist threw a quick glance at Coulson, before saying, “You’ve heard of the Cavalry?”

Fitz rolled his eyes. “Yeah, everyone at the Academy talks about st-” he stopped himself, a realisation filling his face.

“She’s the Cavalry!” Fitz-Simmons cried out in unison.

There was a grunt coming from the floor behind Skye. “I told you never to call me that,” May got out, her voice gravelly. Coulson was both glad and a little surprised that she had managed to wake up so soon.

Meanwhile, Simmons looked elated. “Oh, I can’t believe it! We’re sure to get out of here now,” she said, voice certain. Then, turning to the still lying pilot, she asked, “How _ do _ we get out of here?”

May grunted again, struggling to sit up. When she finally managed it, she assessed the situation. “We can’t go through the doors, they’re tied to the pressurisation lines and the only way to manually override them is from the inside,” she explained, voice hushed, mindful of the soldier standing guard. She then looked over at Simmons. “You two geniuses have nothing?”

Fitz looked flustered. “Yeah, well, it’s hard to concentrate in these intense situations.”

Ward nudged his shoulder. “Hey, don’t freeze up,” he said, voice uncharacteristically soft. “You don’t have to come up with the whole solution, just a part of it,” he finished, glancing at Skye, who gave him a bright smile.

“That’s right,” she agreed.

Simmons acquired a look of deep concentration on her face. “We could get upstairs through the lab’s air vent,” she suggested. “Granted, probably only May, Skye or me could squeeze through, but it’s an idea.”

Coulson nodded in agreement. “Yeah, but we’d have to somehow break through the glass doors first to get  _ into _ the lab.”

May shrugged. “I could drive a car through it,” she offered.

Ward shook his head. “Then we’d lose the element of surprise - there’s eight guys out there plus the Comandante, we need every advantage we can get.”

Skye bit her lip. “I, uh, I have an idea. I mean, it’s stupid and dangerous but it might work.”

Phil was willing to consider anything. “What is it?”

“We could blow a hole in the plane?” she suggested, voice small and unsure. “I mean, May said the doors were tied to the pressurisation lines, right?”

May tightened her jaw. “You’re not blowing a hole in my plane,” she growled out.

“It’s a good idea though,” Fitz defended Skye. “You could drive through the lab doors, sure, but what about the cockpit door? The drop in cabin pressure would release all the doors.”

Ward piped up, “Can’t we just lower the ramp? Wouldn’t that even out the pressure?”

Fitz shook his head. “The cargo hold isn’t really airtight, the pressure here is already even. Didn’t you ever notice how cold and thin the air is back here?”

They all hushed for a moment when their guard shot them a suspicious look. “What do we do then?” whispered Coulson.

“Wait,” hissed Simmons. “Wouldn’t breaking through the lab doors even out the cabin pressure?”

Fitz nodded. “Sure, but it would be much slower than just blowing a hole in the side of this thing.”

May growled again. “We’re not blowing up the Bus,” she insisted.

“How long would it take for the pressure to even out if we broke through the lab doors?” Coulson asked Fitz.

The engineer went silent for a second, calculating in his head, before answering, “About two minutes, I’d say.”

Phil nodded. “Ok, does anyone see a way to barricade the upstairs door from this side, so Reyes’ men can’t get in?” he asked in a careful whisper.

Ward hmmed in agreement. “There’s a crow bar in the trunk of the SUV - we can wedge it in next to the doorjamb.”

“Good thinking,” he praised the specialist, before turning to May. “How many of Reyes’ men can you take on in two minutes?”

“Depends on my orders,” the Chinese woman answered cryptically.

Phil had no problems understanding though. “You have permission to kill,” he told her.

May nodded. “In that case, four or five.”

Coulson leaned forward. “Ok, here’s what we’re gonna do,” he began. “We block the upstairs door, then drive the SUV through the lab and have May crawl through the air vent. Skye, Fitz-Simmons, you grab that 084 and barricade yourselves in the lab with it, so that if Reyes opens the cargo door, you won’t fall off the plane. Ward and I will wait by the door for the cabin pressure to drop, so we can get through and help May - she’s going to have to get to the cockpit as soon as possible in order for us to take back the control of the Bus.”

Everyone nodded, but Skye frowned. “Well, we won’t be doing any of that if we can’t get out of these ropes. We’re tied to the cargo door, so-”

Her sentence was interrupted by a sickening crack as next to her May jerked her bound hands, forcibly dislocating her wrist.

Fitz cringed. “What the hell was that?” he asked.

Ward smirked. “Her wrist,” he explained as they all watched Melinda slip her hands out of the ropes. Another horrifying crunch of a bone later, the woman’s wrist was back where it should be. The Asian specialist then sneaked around the parked SUV, careful not to let herself be seen by the soldier still guarding them.

Then, in a blink of an eye, May pounced. Two seconds later, the soldier was lying knocked out on the ground as the woman stood over him, not even having broken a sweat.

They worked fast after that. May helped them get out of their binds and Ward barricaded the upstairs door, before Coulson took it upon himself to get in the SUV and crash into the lab. The sound of breaking glass was loud in the otherwise quiet plane and the team could hear panicked shouts coming from upstairs.

Fitz unscrewed the metal cover from the air vent, while Skye with Simmons  crouched down in the corner of the lab, the 084 clutched tightly in their hands. May then disappeared up the air vent and a few moments later, Coulson could hear thumps and other sounds of fighting coming from upstairs.

It took slightly less than two minutes for the pressure to drop and the door to release and then Coulson and Ward were joining the fight. They entered the lounge room, where four soldiers already lay on the ground - only one of them visibly breathing. There were thumps and grunts coming from the hallway leading towards the cockpit and, doing the math, Phil realised that May had to be entertaining the remaining six Policía Militar soldiers - well, five when you take into account that one of them had to be piloting the plane.

“Hey!” he shouted, trying to take the attention away from his friend and lure some of the attackers to where he and Ward were taking cover behind a couch. Two of Camilla’s soldiers and Reyes herself ran back into the lounge room - May had managed to take down another one then. Five in total, just like she had said she would.

As soon as the remaining soldiers were close enough, Ward performed an impressive jump over the back of one of the couches and knocked one of them down, turning to face the other one. The first guy got back up but he was visibly rattled as he watched the young specialist fist fight his buddy.

Phil didn’t have time to pay anymore attention to the tousle as Camilla charged at him, her fist catching the side of his face as he was late to duck. Damn it, he thought, he was really out of practice.

The plane suddenly tilted to the right, knocking everyone off balance. Coulson landed on his side, his left shoulder absorbing most of the fall. May must have gotten inside the cockpit, Coulson realised, and was currently fighting over the flight controls.

Reyes, who had also fallen down, managed to stand up faster than him but got immediately knocked back down as the Bus tilted sharply in the other direction. This gave Coulson an advantage and he wasted no time in using it. Launching himself at Camilla, he bashed her head harshly against the ground and succeeded in knocking her out cold.

Looking up, he noticed that Ward had easily taken down the two remaining soldiers in the time it took Coulson to subdue Reyes.

“You all right, sir?” the specialist asked, giving Phil a hand up.

“Yeah, I’m great,” he insisted, though he was short of breath and his shoulder was throbbing. “I’m gonna go and check in with May, we need to change course back for the Slingshot.”

Ward paused. “The Slingshot? I thought we were headed to the Fridge.”

Coulson shook his head. The Fridge was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s containment facility, where most of the dangerous technology they found was stored. It was in a secret location and it was one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the world. On the other hand, the Slingshot was a facility that specialised in destroying things that were too dangerous to keep in the Fridge. “We don’t want anyone to ever get their hands on this - if the Germans managed to make such a powerful weapon this small seventy years ago, imagine what we could do with a technology like that now.”

The specialist raised his eyebrows. “I know! That’s exactly what I’m imagining - we could finish off the terrorists for once and for all.”

Coulson shook his head. “A weapon like this is too dangerous for anyone to have. It’s best if it gets destroyed.”

“But, sir-”

“No, Grant,” Phil insisted. “You go and see the kids, while I check in with Melinda.”

Ward hesitated but then just nodded his head and disappeared in the direction of the lab without any further complaints.

 

Five hours and one stop at a S.H.I.E.L.D. detainment facility later, they arrived at the Slingshot. The 084 was promptly taken off their hands and carried to wherever they disintegrated radioactive weapons.

“All of this for an object you’re just going to destroy,” commented Skye with a sigh as they watched the 084 being carted away.

Coulson nodded. “It’s for the best. A weapon like that shouldn’t exist. People like Reyes would always be after it.”

Skye hmmed in agreement. “Is everyone all right?” she asked hesitantly. “I mean, you and May and Ward?”

Phil gave her a smile. “We’re fine.”

“I just-” she paused. “I felt so useless, you know? Just sitting in that lab and listening to the fighting upstairs.”

Coulson squeezed her shoulder. “Well, I’m sure that Ward would be happy to help you with some self-defence techniques if you wanted to,” he suggested.

Skye grinned. “Yeah, I’ll think about that.”

Their chat was interrupted by Fitz-Simmons walking down the ramp. “That was exhilarating,” the biochemist was saying.

Fitz nodded frantically. “Yeah! We literally managed to survive a hostage situation. Take that, Professor Vaughn!”

Simons smiled. “ _ You _ had a new experience,  _ I _ had a new experience - it was fantastic. Aren’t you glad we’ve left the lab?”

Coulson gave the two friends a fond look, before examining the rest of his team. May was inspecting the engine of their SUV for any damages caused by driving into the glass doors of the lab, Ward was sitting on one of the many crates that were in their cargo hold and was cleaning out his gun, and Skye was standing at the edge of the ramp, doing something on her phone with a nervous look on her face. She must be more rattled by the experience than she had let on, thought Coulson.

“Ok, people,” Phil spoke up. “We have twenty minutes before we have to be in the air again. Make sure you’re ready in time.”

Everyone nodded and Phil decided to head upstairs and shut himself in his office. He had a lot to think about.

He had barely sat down behind his desk, when he heard a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” he called out.

The door opened to reveal Melinda, her face impassive and her hands hurriedly wiped clean off motor oil.

“Hey.” He smiled at her.

May eyed him silently for a moment before speaking. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Phil sighed. “Why does everybody keep asking me that? I’m fine!”

The woman just raised her eyebrows.

Coulson deflated. “Ok, fine,” he muttered. “My aim was off, my shoulder’s throbbing and my head is killing me. I guess I’m a little rusty.”

May nodded. “You  _ did _ die,” she said. “It’s normal to feel a little off.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t feel just a little off. I feel completely different!” he complained.

His friend was quiet for another moment and then stepped towards him. “Take off your shirt,” she instructed him quietly.

“What?” Coulson was dumbfounded.

She just stepped closer. “Unbutton it.”

Oh, thought Coulson, of course. May didn’t actually want him to undress, she just wanted to see the scar. Phil unbuttoned the top five buttons of his shirt, revealing the big ugly scarring over his heart.

May touched it carefully. “You feel different,” she began, her voice almost a whisper, “because you  _ are _ different. Something like this changes you, Phil.”

He sighed and she retracted her hand, stepping away. “Also,” May said more loudly, her mouth twitching in a rare smile, “you really are rusty.”

Phil chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Yeah. Thank you for your help today, I know you didn’t want to see combat again.”

“Please,” May scoffed. “This was your plan all along - bringing me out in the field.”

Coulson frowned. “Look, if you really don’t want to be here-”

The Asian interrupted him. “Actually, I want to report for combat duty,” she told him, face serious. And wasn’t that a surprise?

“Are you sure?”

She shrugged. “You need all the help you can get.”

Phil smiled at her again, grateful to his old friend. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

May acknowledged his words with a nod and turned to leave, stopping in the doorway for one last question, “So you’re ok?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he assured her. His headache had eased a little and the shoulder wasn’t really that bad.

“Will you tell me if you’re ever not?” she questioned with narrowed eyes.

“Of course.”


	8. Chapter 8

“So, AC,” Skye began as she sat down next to Coulson. She had started to call him ‘AC’ as a short for ‘Agent Coulson’, claiming it was their new lingo. They were sitting in the Bus’ lounge room, drinking raspberry lemonade that Fitz had smuggled on board so they didn’t have to keep drinking plain water. The plane was on its way to Alaska, where the team were supposed to assess an old S.H.I.E.L.D. secret base and determine if it was still habitable. Not exactly the kind of mission he had imagined doing but someone had to do it. 

Skye continued, “How exactly does it work now if I want to have a look at some of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files?”

Phil raised his eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Well, now that I’m working for you, don’t I get some access?” she asked, face the picture of innocence.

Coulson sighed. “Skye, if the only reason you agreed to work for me is that you thought you’d get access to our confidential files-”

“What? No!” she cried out. “I swear, AC, that’s not how it is. I’m just asking because I’m curious.”

Not sure if he believed her, Coulson made a mental note to keep an eye on her. “Listen, you’re just a consultant - you’re not even a Level One Agent, you basically have no access.”

The hacker huffed in disappointment. “Damn it.” Then she narrowed her eyes at Phil. “What level are you?”

He smiled. “Level Nine.”

“Whoa, how many are there?”

“There are ten levels, but only two people have reached the highest level - Director Fury and Agent Hill. The rest of us are at most Nines. May is an Eight, Ward is a Seven and Fitz-Simmons are Threes.”

A sly look came over Skye’s face. “So,  _ technically _ , you could get almost any information you wanted, right? Being a Nine and all.”

He nodded, suspicious. “ _ Technically _ , yes. Why are you asking?”

She quickly backtracked as if realising how her inquiries sounded. “Oh. No reason,” she said, hurriedly got up and then promptly left, leaving Coulson blinking after her in confusion. What the hell was she after? Were Ward’s suspicions correct and had Skye really just agreed to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., so that she could get confidential information for the Rising Tide?

Well, better safe than sorry, he thought as he stood up and headed for the lab. He would ask Fitz to keep an eye on Skye’s cybernetic doings.

The engineer was agreeable. “Of course, sir,” he said after Coulson explained what he wanted. “I’ll tell you if she ever tries to use our resources for anything other than her job.”

“Make sure she doesn’t know what you’re doing, ok?”

The Scotsman grinned. “It’s like a secret mission, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”

Coulson nodded, returning the smile. “Good. Thank you, Fitz.”

Phil then left the scientist to his own devices, ascending the stairs and heading for the cockpit. They were currently flying over British Columbia, so the scenery had to be pretty boring - he was sure May wouldn’t mind the company.

“Hey,” he greeted the pilot as he entered the sun-filled cockpit.

She nodded at him, her face hidden behind her pilot sunglasses. The sun was setting and, with them headed northwest, it shined right in Melinda’s eyes. It was then that Phil realised how late it was.

“What’s our ETA?” he asked.

Glancing at the clock on her instrument panel, she answered, “Zero zero fifteen.”

Phil acknowledged the information with a nod. “We’ll probably have to wait till sunrise to begin the hike to Providence Base, I don’t want to get lost in the middle of Alaskan woods.”

May smiled slightly. “I’d find you,” she promised and Coulson grinned.

The fell into a comfortable silence after that, watching the sun slowly disappearing behind the horizon as they chased it.

The quiet was interrupted by the ringing of Phil’s phone. He pulled it out of his suit pocket and glanced at the screen, Maria Hill’s face looking at him from the small device.

He picked up the phone with a grunted, “Coulson.”

“We have a problem,” the agent on the other side of the line said. “Mike Peterson had been kidnapped from the Playground.”

Phil blanched. “Come again?”

Maria raised her voice, “He had been kidnapped from our very secret training facility in Washington, Phil! I have a team on site chasing the leads but I want your team on it too. We need to find out  _ how _ ,  _ who _ and  _ why _ , understood?”

Coulson nodded. “Understood, we’re on our way back,” he promised before hanging up.

He turned to May. “Turn around,” he ordered her. “We’re headed back home. Mike Peterson has been kidnapped.”

The pilot pressed her lips tightly together - the only sign of irritation on her otherwise impassive face - and began doing a smooth one-eighty.

Phil sighed. “This is the last thing we needed right now,” he complained.

May glanced at him briefly as she operated the plane’s engines. “What does anyone want with him?” she asked.

“Remember the guy you crossed off at the train station? Maybe someone returned to finish the job,” Coulson hazarded a guess.

His friend frowned. “Wouldn’t they just kill him then? Why go through the trouble of kidnapping him?”

Coulson paused to think. What did Mike Peterson have  _ now _ that he didn’t have at the train station? Why would anyone risk breaking him out of a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. facility?

The penny dropped. “The stabilising serum,” he breathed out, staring at May in horror. “We had just given them a stabilising serum.”

The Asian tilted her head, opening her mouth to speak, when they got interrupted yet again - this time by the intercom. “Sir?” Fitz’ voice came through. “We have a problem.”

‘Another one?’ he mouthed at May, who shrugged. “What happened?” he asked aloud.

“We’ve been hacked. Someone managed to get into the S.H.I.E.L.D. system through our Bus and dig around in our assets files.”

Well, they had found out the  _ how _ . “Ok, what the hell is wrong with this plane?” he questioned angrily. “Why is it so easy to hack into?”

“Eh, … um, sir?” Fitz spluttered out.

Phil sighed. “I’m coming down there, ask everyone to meet us in the lab.”

“Yes, sir.”

Coulson ended the transmission and went to leave the cockpit. He turned to May one last time. “Get us back to the States as fast as you can, ok?” he asked and then, without waiting for an answer, he left.

Once they all gathered in the Bus’ lab and Coulson explained what exactly had happened, the team went quiet.

“Do you-” Skye began hesitantly before pausing to clear her throat. “Do you think they’ll hurt him?”

Phil shrugged. “It’s a possibility. The most important thing now is to find him before they can extract that serum. He turned to Simmons. “How long would that take exactly?”

The biochemist considered the question. “Well, sir, truth is they might not be able to extract it at all. I mean, they can extract it, but they can’t isolate it.”

Ward raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“The chemical structure of the stabilising agent is highly unstable,” she explained. “The second it enters an individual’s bloodstream, it reacts with the steroid serum and starts to break down. It’s practically non-isolatable once it’s been injected.”

Coulson heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank god,” he uttered.

Ward folded his arms across his chest in his usual gesture. “So they can’t isolate it,” he repeated. “Is there any other way they can get their hands on it?”

“Not easily,” Coulson assured them. “It is locked in a high-security lab at the Playground. You need at least Level Six clearance to get inside and Hill would’ve told me if anyone had tried to get in.”

Ward nodded. “It will be even more highly guarded now, after the kidnapping,” he noted. “And that’s the only place?”

Simmons bit her lip. “Well,  _ I _ have a couple samples of the serum in the fridge here,” she admitted. “I kept them because I thought I might still want to tweak it a little, trying to improve its effects, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“We need to get that somewhere more secure as soon as possible,” Coulson demanded, then turned to Fitz. “You found out who hacked us yet?”

The engineer shook his head with a sigh. “They’re really good, the only thing I managed to find out is that they’re a member of the Rising Tide.”

Everyone turned to look at Skye.

“What?” the girl squeaked. “The Rising Tide is a huge organisation of hacktivists from all around the world. Any of them could have done this!”

The team was silent.

“It wasn’t me!” Skye insisted.

Coulson shook his head. “No one’s saying it was.”

The hacker pointed a finger at him. “But you’re thinking it. I can see your faces thinking it.”

“We’re assessing the situation,” Phil explained.

She huffed. “Then I’m sure you’re taking into account that I have been living on a plane with you this whole time. It would be impossible for me to hack S.H.I.E.L.D.!”

“Or easier,” muttered Fitz.

Coulson nodded in agreement, remembering his earlier conversation with Skye. “We’re gonna need more than that.”

The brunet girl threw out her hands. “Fine! Let me trace the hack then, and I’ll prove it.”

“I believe her, sir,” Ward stepped in, earning himself a grateful look from Skye. “And if she’s telling the truth, we need to track down the person responsible.”

Coulson nodded curtly. “Ok. Dig up something, and fast. Fitz’ll keep an eye on you.”

Skye went to work.

Ten minutes later, Coulson piped up again. “How close are we?” he asked.

“Almost there,” muttered Skye, her eyes not leaving the strings of computer code on the screen in front of her.

Fitz nodded. “She’s identified the remote-access trojan and the infected endpoint. She’s now searching for a TCP to correlate the hypertext with signature information and then… Bob’s your uncle.”

Coulson turned to look at Ward, entirely confused by Fitz’s explanation. “You got any of that?” he asked him.

The specialist shook his head, also puzzled. “Only the uncle part.”

Skye made a victorious sound. “Aha! We got our origin. Austin, Texas.”

Coulson perked up. “You got a name?”

“No. Just the café our hacker worked out of, but I’m in the system. I’m gonna check to see if any credit-card charges from today match up with any known hackers.” She paused, watching her screen intently until the computer pinged and a photo of a young man came up. “I got him.”

Fitz leaned in. “Miles Lydon,” he read from the screen. “So not Skye then. That’s a relief.”

Coulson wasn’t looking at the computer though, he was studying Skye’s face and the expression of recognition on it. “You know him?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Every hacker in the world knows him.”

Simmons chuckled. “Not just the hacker world. He infiltrated Kremlin.”

“Yeah,” agreed Fitz. “The picture of, uh, Putin shirtless on horseback - that was his hack.”

Phil wasn’t amused. “It was also his hack that got Mike kidnapped.” He tapped his earpiece. “May, set a course for Austin.”

“Already did,” came the short answer.

“Ok, here’s what we’re going to do. Hill has a team in Washington, so our best bet is to chase this thing from the other end - find Mr. Lydon, bring him in.” He turned to his specialist. “Ward, I want you to scout the café once we land. Skye, you try and find out where Lydon lives.”

“Yes, sir,” was Ward’s answer. “Roger that, AC,” was Skye’s.

Content, Coulson left to speak to May. He had something he wanted to discuss with her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am on my holidays this week, so I might update slightly less frequently - not only because I have less time to sit on a computer but also because of the shoddy internet connection :)

“I may have eyes on him,” Ward reported through the earpiece as Coulson sat on standby in their SUV. “Yep, it’s him. He just bought himself a cup of coffee.”

Phil hmmed. “Tail him.”

“Yes, s- damn it! I’ve been made,” Ward swore, his breath faltering. “He’s heading east on 6th Street.”

Coulson took a second to get his bearings. He stood at the corner of 6th and Lamar Boulevard.

The specialist’s voice came through again. “Target is now in a silver Jetta,” he reported just as the mentioned car sped past Coulson.

“I got him,” Phil muttered, stomping on the accelerator and driving after the runaway hacker. He followed the silver car for a few hundred metres before he was forced to stop - Lydon had apparently managed to hack the traffic system somehow because all the traffic lights on Lamar Boulevard were flickering crazily between all three colours.

Coulson hit the steering wheel in frustration. “I lost him too,” he reported.

May’s voice came alive in his ear. “I’m on the move,” she informed him.

Phil sighed. He wasn’t sure if that made him happy or angry. He had asked May to shadow Skye if the girl decided to go anywhere, because he was suspicious of her relationship with Mr. Lydon. The look on her face when she saw his photo on the computer screen showed Miles meant more to her than just a fellow hacker.

Still, that didn’t mean he wanted to be right. Because being right also meant he had been wrong about trusting Skye in the first place.

“I’ll pick up Ward and the kids, then we’ll follow you. Keep her in your sights at all times, May,” he told his agent.

“Copy that,” was the answer.

Once he had them all in the SUV, it didn’t take long for May to check in again. “I’m at Fairfax Walk, three two oh eight,” she said. “Skye went inside the house. Do I follow?”

Coulson considered this. “Can you get inside without being spotted?”

Melinda snorted. “I’m going in, she told him and Phil had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. Of course she was going in, why wasn’t he surprised?

Several moments later, May spoke up again. “They’re in the bedroom,” she whispered. “They’re having sex.”

“We’re almost there,” Coulson assured his friend. “You, uh, you might want to let them finish.”

The Chinese specialist hmmed. “I will. I have her shirt, she’s not going anywhere without it.”

The SUV parked in front of the small white house, number 3208, and Phil’s team got out. The front door lock had been picked - courtesy of May - so they all just walked inside. They reached the living room just as the bedroom door opened and a bra-clad Skye appeared, saying, “I need to find my- May!”

May was standing in the doorway calmly, Skye’s shirt hanging off her outstretched hand. “Get dressed,” she growled at the young girl, tossing her the shirt.

The hacker quickly did as she was told, while May disappeared inside the bedroom, presumably going to apprehend Miles.

Skye turned to the rest of the team. “I know how this looks, but-”

Coulson interrupted her, voice hard. “How long have you two been in contact?”

The girl looked contrite. “I contacted him once the day I joined to tell him I was ok and once earlier today.”

“When you tipped off an active suspect?” Ward sneered.

“No, it’s not like that,” Skye insisted. “Miles and I met when we were both in a bad place and we took care of each other. That’s why I warned him, because we’re friends, not because we’re working together on this.”

Coulson gritted his teeth. “If not you, then who is Mr. Lydon working with?”

“No one!” the girl insisted. “He’s an idealist, he believes in freedom of information.”

Phil stepped forward threateningly. “That information cost a man his freedom.”

“I know that,” she admitted. “That’s why I came here - I wanted to find out anything that could help us find Mike. I just felt like I couldn’t tell you guys everything.”

“I know. That’s why I asked May to follow you,” he said motioning towards the Asian agent who was just leading a haphazardly dressed Mr. Lydon out of the bedroom.

Coulson turned to him. “The classified information you stole from us - who did you give it to?”

Miles gave him a cocky grin, shrugging. “It’s information. It has a life of its own.”

“What happened to Mr. Peterson?” Phil demanded.

“I don’t know who that is, so why don’t you tell me?”

Coulson lost his patience. “Take him in,” he told May, who nodded and pulled a black fabric bag over Miles’ head. Phil then turned to the others. “Fitz-Simmons - gather all the evidence, Ward - secure Skye. We got what we were looking for here.”

He then turned to leave, ignoring Skye’s broken “I’m so sorry.” as Ward cuffed her.

Once back on the Bus, Mr. Lydon was locked up in the interrogation room with May and her wonderful interrogation skills, while Ward was guarding a contrite Skye in the lounge room.

“She’s not torturing him, is she?” the girl asked worriedly.

Ward snorted. “I wouldn’t be bothered if she was.”

Coulson left them to it and retired to his office. He felt horrible that he had trusted Skye and she had betrayed him like this. He rubbed at his temples, his head starting to ache again. He suspected this wasn’t the end of the hacker’s secrets. Their earlier conversation replayed in his mind - she had wanted to gain access to S.H.I.E.L.D. files but at that point, Mike Peterson had already been kidnapped. So what else was she hiding?

A knock at the office door startled him. “Come in.”

May walked in silently, leaning against the wall opposite his desk and folding her arms.

Phil sighed. “Go ahead. Say it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t do petty.”

“But you were right. I trusted my gut, even though you said she was a risk, and I was wrong.”

Melinda shrugged. “When someone breaks into my house, I don’t usually invite them to stay, but that’s me.”

Phil stood up. “That was me, too! Then that knife went through my heart and...” he trailed of self-deprecatingly.

She raised her eyebrows, giving him a small teasing smile. “You sure it didn’t go through the brain?”

He threw her an offended glance. “You don’t really do comforting either, do you?”

She shrugged again dismissing the topic. She then went on to report, “Lydon doesn’t know anything useful. “He received a million dollars from some medical research lab to find where the Playground was.”

“Has he met with anyone?” he asked.

“No. All the communication happened through burner phones.”

“Does he know where they might be keeping Mike?”

May sighed softly. “No, he had never even heard Peterson’s name - they had just asked after the Playground. He had sent them the information at twenty-one oh five hours today.” She paused, looking at his wall clock. “Well, yesterday.”

Coulson frowned. “They move fast, don’t they? Peterson was kidnapped sometime after half past nine.”

May narrowed her eyes. “They must’ve had a team on standby in Washington,” she concluded. Phil nodded, though he wasn’t sure his friend was right. There was another, much more plausible, possibility - S.H.I.E.L.D. had a mole. How else would they know Mike Peterson was at the Playground to begin with? That was Level Eight and up information.

Shaking off those thoughts, his head still throbbing, he smiled at his friend. “Thank you. Anything else?”

She shrugged. “Fitz is looking through the equipment we found at Lydon’s house. He might still come up with some leads.”

“Ok. I’m gonna call Hub and ask them to send someone to pick up Mr. Lydon. And then I think I need to have a chat with Skye,” he finished.

Melinda nodded. “I’ll be in the cockpit if you need me.”

Lydon’s pick up arrived an hour later in the form of Coulson’s old buddy and Ward’s former SO John Garrett and his junior agent Antoine Triplett.

“Phil!” John called out with a big grin on his face as he walked up the Bus’ ramp. “Long time no see!”

Coulson nodded. “Yeah, last time was that op in Columbia if I’m not mistaken. Good times. Did you hear about Reyes?”

Garrett nodded. “Grant told me about what happened. Nasty business.”

Phil smiled. “We pulled through. Your boy is proving himself to be a great asset,” he said.

“Speaking of the devil,” John called out as Ward walked up to the two men.

“Garrett!” the young specialist greeted him enthusiastically. “I haven’t seen you in ages! How are you?”

“I’m doing good, kid. How are you?”

“Good, sir,” he smiled. It was then that he noticed Agent Triplett standing off to the side. The man was young - younger than Ward - and had a pleasant smile on his dark face. “You must be Trip,” Grant greeted him.

The black man grinned charismatically. “The one and only. We haven’t had the pleasure yet but Garrett talks about you all the time. Apparently, you’re a hard act to follow.”

Ward smirked self-assuredly. “Glad to hear that.”

Coulson stepped in, not really wanting to break up the reunion but not really having a choice - they were on a schedule and had to leave Austin in an hour. “Your prisoner is in the interrogation room, so come in.”

Garrett waved his hand. “Trip will go get him, I want to have a look around this plane of yours!”

Agent Triplett went to do as he was told with a shrug of his shoulders, while John strolled over to the lab. “This all looks very posh,” he commented. “My plane barely has a toilet.”

Coulson laughed as they stepped inside Fitz-Simmons’ domain. “You should see the upstairs, we have a bar,” he teased.

John snorted. “Of course you do. You get the cushy job and the Ritz of planes, while the rest of us get stuck doing milk runs in old rust buckets.”

“How  _ did _ you end up making this milk run anyway?” he asked his old friend. “I didn’t think Lydon was a Level Eight sort of business.”

Garrett shrugged, twiddling with one of Fitz’ gadgets. “I volunteered. I was nearby, so I figured why not pay my old pal Coulson a visit?”

Phil shook his head exasperatedly. “You just wanted to see for yourself that I was really alive.”

John burst out laughing. “You got me!” he confirmed. “So, how  _ are _ you still alive? I mean, how does one come back from getting a knife to the heart? That’s some dark magic right there.”

Coulson shrugged. “I was lucky, I guess. That and I spent some time in Tahiti. It’s a magical place.”

Garrett narrowed his eyes at him. “You don’t look tanned.”

Phil just chuckled.

Later that day, after everyone had time to take a nap and May had got them in the air again, it was finally time to had that talk with Skye. He had called for her through the intercom and was now waiting for the knock on his office door.

She came in a minute later, n excuse on her lips, “I’m sorry, AC, I really didn’t mean for anything to-”

“Stop lying,” he interrupted her. “Since the moment you stepped foot on this plane, you’ve been lying to my face, to all of us.

“I haven’t.” she protested.

“You’re lying now!” he shouted. “I stood up for you to my team and some of us started to believe in you!”

“I-”

He interrupted again. “Why are you here? You’ve been keeping something from us this whole time - and it wasn’t just a boyfriend. You have a secret, Skye, and this is your one chance to come out with it. Otherwise, I’m done with you!”

She had tears in her eyes now, sniffling pitifully. Slowly reaching into her jeans pocket, she pulled out a small object - a flashdrive.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking it up.

She shrugged. “It’s everything I have.”

“On us?”

“No,” she shook her head, her voice breaking. “On me. That’s why I learned to crack systems, why I joined the Rising Tide - to find any details about my parents.”

Coulson raised his eyebrows. He had known Skye was from an orphanage, she had even picked out her own name for god’s sakes, but he hadn’t been aware she didn’t know anything about where she came from.

She continued, “There’s nothing - no records, no trace of them. My lifelong search has led to a single document - redacted by S.H.I.E.L.D.. That’s why I was asking all those questions yesterday.”

“You were hoping you could see the original document,” he finished for her.

She nodded, sniffling again.

He sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You might not like what you find,” he warned her.

“It can’t be worse than I imagined,” she insisted.

Phil nodded. “Maybe I can help,” he offered. “I’ll keep this flash drive and have a look at the files, ok? Meanwhile, you concentrate on your job.”

Skye looked grateful. “Thank you. I promise I won’t disappoint you again, AC.”

“We’ll see.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the ringing of Coulson’s phone. He picked it up with a tired, “Maria?”

“I have some more bad news,” Hill told him, voice full of regret.

Phil sighed in resignation. “Of course you do. What happened this time?”

“We found Mike Peterson,” she told him. “His body washed up in Gunston Cove. They threw him in the Potomac with a bullet hole in between his eyes.”

Coulson swallowed heavily, looking at a still sniffling Skye. “Thanks, Maria,” he ended the phone call.

The hacker turned her big brown eyes to him. “What happened?” she asked.

“Mike Peterson is dead,” he informed her, unsurprised when the girl started crying again. What a horrible day it had been - and to think that they were supposed to be in Alaska right now, strolling through snowy woods.

He stood up. “I’m gonna go and tell the rest of the team. You take your time to calm yourself,” he told Skye, squeezing her shoulder on his way to the door.

Her only answer was a sob.

Phil gathered everyone, including May who had turned on the autopilot in order to be able to leave the cockpit, in the lounge room. He cut right to the chase. “Mike Peterson is dead,” he told them. “We found his body in the Potomac River.”

Simmons let out a sad sigh. “That’s horrible,” she whispered. “How is Skye?”

Fitz snorted. “Who cares? It’s probably her fault anyway - had she not lied to us, we might have found Mike before it was too late.”

Coulson shook his head. “There’s no use in blaming anyone, it is what it is. Just tell me you managed to find something helpful on Lydon’s computer - we need to find these people.”

The engineer hesitated. “Well, I managed to trace the money Lydon received to some sort of hydrology research lab in Virginia but their servers are not active anymore. They must’ve known we would find them, so they packed up and left.”

Coulson nodded in understanding. “Good job anyway,” he told Fitz. “Has anyone got any good news?”

No one spoke up.

“Fine,” he huffed resignedly. “May, how long till we’re at the Playground? I want to get Simmon’s serum somewhere secure as fast as possible.”

“Two hours,” the Asian replied, face blank.

Simmons took a deep breath. “I’ll go and pack up the samples,” she said and ran downstairs.

A minute later, a panicky voice called out, “Uh, sir?”

“Simmons?” Coulson called back, a sinking feeling already filling his stomach.

The biochemist ran back inside the lounge room, an anxious expression on her face. “One of the samples is missing,” she explained. “Someone must’ve taken it!”

“Reyes,” Ward growled out angrily, while Fitz mumbled something rude in a strong Scottish accent. Coulson raised his eyes to the heavens, frustrated beyond belief. “One break!” he yelled out. “Give me just one break!”

Seriously, the worst day ever.


	10. Chapter 10

A knock sounded at his door and May stuck her head inside his office. “You wanted to see me?” she asked him.

Phil gave her a smile. “Yeah. I have something I want you to have a look at,” he told her, holding up the flash drive Skye had given him a few days ago.

She took it from him. “What is it?”

“It’s files that Skye has on her parents,” he explained. “Well, one file really. It’s a redacted file about a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dropping off an infant Skye at an orphanage.

“I found the original file,” he continued, turning his computer monitor to show her his research. “Though I had to ask Fury himself to give me access, can you imagine? The agent was called Linda Avery - she was killed two weeks afterwards. Her partner, Richard Lumley, went off the grid.”

May nodded. “You think he killed her?”

Phil shook his head. “I think he went into hiding so he wouldn’t end up the same way.”

The Asian hmmed. “And you want to know what or who he’s hiding from.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Because if I’m right and Avery was killed because of Skye, then her life might be in danger.”

May nodded. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, work on it in your spare time. The people who killed Peterson are still a priority. We need to find out what they’re doing with those steroids.”

Sliding the flash drive into her jacket pocket, May pulled out a tablet. “Speaking of steroids, Simmons put together a list of chemicals and equipment that’s needed to run a lab like the one we found in New York. We’ll get a computer alert if we find any suspicious movements or purchases of the items.”

Coulson smiled in satisfaction. “That’s good, let’s hope it pans out. Do we have any ideas what the terrorists might want with the super steroid serum?”

May raised her eyebrows. “You mean apart from the obvious - that they want to be super strong?”

Phil snorted. “You mean they want to build an army of super soldiers? No one’s ever been able to do that and, trust me, they tried - the Americans did, the Russians, even the Germans during the w-” he broke off.

“During the war,” May finished for him.

Coulson felt his heart beating loudly. “I’ll be damned,” he breathed out. “Fury was right. It’s Hydra! I mean, didn’t Fitz say something about a _hydrology_ research lab the other day? What if he just didn’t understand the reference?”

Melinda frowned. “I thought Hydra wasn’t active anymore.”

“It wasn’t,” he said. “But it is _now_.”

“Phil,” May warned, “if you’re right, this is bigger than us. Bigger than this team. This could mean a potential war.”

Coulson considered this. “You’re right, but as long as they don’t know we’re onto them, we have a chance of ending this before anything serious happens. Think about it, May, if we play this right, we can cut off the head and burn Hydra to the ground.”

His friend nodded hesitantly, visibly steeling herself for battle. “What’s our first move then?”

Phil grinned. “That’s the Melinda May I know! Let’s talk strategy.”

In the next hour and a half, they had managed to put together all of the evidence and clues they had as fell as come up with several theories on how Hydra operated. Their favourite idea so far had been that Hydra regrouped in South America thanks to runaway Nazi officers and had been operating alongside other terrorist organisations while gaining power. They weren’t completely certain about Reyes’ role in all of it though, their opinions differing. May thought the Comandante was directly involved, having worked for Hydra the whole time, while Coulson believed his former friend had just seen an opportunity to end the rebel uprising, which caused her to betray him.

“Why would she take Simmons’ serum then?” questioned Melinda.

Phil shrugged. “I don’t know! It might have not been her - it might have been one of her men. Or maybe Simmons is wrong and she’d just misplaced it.”

May gave him an unimpressed look. “You serious?”

“Hey, I’m just saying it’s possible, ok?” he defended himself, rubbing at his aching temples, before admitting, “But I agree that it sounds a little farfetched.”

Melinda let out a slow breath. “I have to go now, this plane won’t fly itself.”

Coulson looked out of the window confusedly. “It won’t?” he teased her.

May left with a roll of her eyes.

They were on their way to Alaska again, and this time they were hopefully actually going to reach the Providence base so they could check it out. Phil didn’t think that asset assessment was really a part of his team’s job, but he had a feeling Fury had given him the assignment for a reason, so he didn’t complain.

The sky was clear, the ground underneath them covered with snow as the Bus sliced through the air. The team was resting in their bunks, catching up on their beauty sleep, so Coulson had time to do his paperwork. What a joy.

He pulled out the stack of papers that required his attention and, heaving a sigh, he began working. He was interrupted not even five minutes later by his intercom.

Fitz’s voice rasped through, “Sir? I know you said not to bother you but I saw May was already-”

“Just tell me what it is, Fitz,” he interrupted the Scotsman.

“We got a hit on a shipment of stuff from Simmons’ list.” He paused. “Uh, Simmons made this list that-”

“I’m aware,” he once again interrupted, “May had informed me. You’re sure it’s the terrorists?”

The engineer hmmed. “Either that or someone else is doing the exact same research as they are.”

Coulson nodded, accepting the point. “Where are we going then? I have to break the news that we’re changing course yet again to May.”

“Italy. The shipment is being transferred old-school - by a train from Verona to Zagreb. The Italian authorities are already on it.”

Phil cringed. He hated fighting with other agencies about who was going to lead the investigation. “Fitz,” he said, “Give me a contact number on the officer in charge - I’ll have a chat.”

The engineer mumbled something as the sounds of typing on a keyboard filtered through. “That would be Mr. Luca Russo,” Fitz informed him. “I’m sending you his phone number now.”

“Thank you. I’m gonna go and give May her new orders and then I’ll call Russo. Team meeting in ten,” he finished and left his office, headed for the cockpit.

He knocked at the cockpit quietly and tried to open the door but it was locked. “May?” he called out.

There was a click and a shuffle to be heard before the lock disengaged. Phil entered and found May turned towards him, eyebrows raised in question.

“Did our earlier conversation fulfil your social interaction quota for today?” he asked her. “I don’t think you actually have to lock yourself in here - no one other than me would ever dare to disturb you.”

She let out an amused breath but didn’t comment otherwise.

Phil rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, uh, there might be a change of plans?” he said hesitantly.

The Chinese pilot sighed. “Where to?”

“Verona, Italy. We got a hit on Simmons’ list.”

His friend tightened her jaw, picking up her headset.

Coulson gave her a smile. “I’ll leave you to it,” he told her. “I have a phone call to make. Team briefing in ten, ok?”

May acknowledged him with a nod, before reporting their change of course to S.H.I.E.L.D. Air Control. Phil left, already dialing Russo’s number.

It was an understatement that the Italian officer wasn’t too happy to hear from him but in the end he had no other choice than to give in and let Coulson take the lead.

“Thank you for your understanding,” Phil finished the conversation.

The Italian snorted. “I didn’t get the impression I had much choice in the matter, Agent Coulson.”

“Even so,” said the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. “Thank you.”

Later on, when everyone was gathered in the Command Center, Phil told his agents the Italian officials were happy to let them take over. He received a few disbelieving snorts but no one called him out on it.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Ward, studying a satellite map of the train’s planned route that Fitz had pulled up.

“We infiltrate the train, tag the package and then follow it to the new lab,” Coulson explained. “If everything goes as planned, they won’t even know we were ever on the train.”

Ward nodded. “So we’re going in undercover,” he concluded.

May’s jaw tightened. “I hate undercover,” she grunted, clearly not happy about the development. Coulson knew that his friend’s contempt for undercover work wasn’t because she wasn’t good at it - she was actually better at deception than Phil - it was because she had to smile, and talk and generally communicate with people she didn’t know or care about.

“I promise you won’t have to smile,” he told her. “You and Ward will take point - once we locate the package, you’ll tag it with a tracker.” He then turned to the rest of his team. “Fitz, you’ll be running communications. Skye and Simmons, you’ll stay on the Bus and coordinate in case something goes wrong.”

Half an hour later, the plan was fully formulated, the Italian authorities were notified and their covers were created - in short, everything was ready and prepared for the mission.

“Skye?” Coulson called after the young hacker as the team was dispersing after their meeting finished.

“AC?”

Phil waited for everyone else to clear the room before speaking, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m working on that file you’ve given me. I found the original but there wasn’t much new information - I asked May to have a look into it.”

Skye scowled. “Oh. I was-” she paused. “I was kind of hoping we could keep it just between the two of us?”

Coulson squeezed her shoulder. “May is good, Skye,” he assured her. “She’s going to find out what happened to your parents, I promise.”

The girl nodded hesitantly, her face still a mixture of hurt and confusion.

“Hey,” he said softly. “She’s not that bad.”

Skye gave him a watery smile. “Ok.”

They landed in Verona at six in the morning on the dot and quickly made their way to the train station to meet with Russo and his men, leaving only Skye and Simmons behind. The Italians were supposed to provide backup in case the team needed it, though Coulson hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

The team was already dressed up for their covers - Ward and Coulson didn’t really look any different, but Fitz was wearing jeans and a worn T-shirt and May had slipped into an ankle-length leather coat that completely covered the form-fitting combat uniform she was wearing underneath. The woman had also put on some make-up, which Coulson wasn’t sure what to think of - on one hand, she looked as beautiful as always, but on the other hand, it just wasn’t her.

“Welcome, Agent Coulson,” greeted them Russo, his accent thick. “The train leaves in forty minutes.”

Phil shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. These are agents May, Ward and Fitz,” he introduced his team.

Russo nodded at them. “Welcome to Italia.”

Coulson looked over the train station platform, which was already full of people. “We’re gonna disperse now, so as to attract the least amount of unwanted attention.” Everyone nodded and went their separate ways - Ward and May walking over to a nearby bench to sit down, playing a married couple while Fitz and Coulson split up and headed in opposite directions. Soon, they weren’t even able to see each other - their only way of communication their comms.

When the train finally arrived thirty minutes later, leaving everyone with only ten minutes for boarding, Coulson go a glance of the rest of his team. May was striding down the aisle in her outrageous coat, looking the very picture of a stuck up rich wife, while Ward trailed after her like a lost puppy, carrying all of their luggage. The couple made their way into a first-class coupé, Ward managing to trade a few sentences with the ticket inspector along the way.

On the other side of the car sat Fitz, a map and a tourist guide in his hands and a lost expression on his face. Coulson hadn’t been sure if the scientist was up to an undercover mission but he played the part of a confused tourist perfectly.

Coulson himself sat in business class, a history book at his side and a pile of fake student essays in front of him. A history professor who hadn’t managed to correct all his students’ work before the summer holidays.

The train started moving six minutes later than scheduled, which Coulson reckoned was normal in Italy, and the attendants started making their coffee rounds.

Phil had just accepted a cup of the rich-smelling brew, when May’s voice came through his earpiece, “I’m in position.”

“Copy that,” he whispered and, not being able to help himself, he glanced up at the ceiling of his train car. He couldn’t see anything, of course, but was secure in his knowledge that May was somewhere up there. The Chinese agent’s orders were to climb onto the roof of the train and make her way along the top, determining the position of the package, so that Ward could then go and tag it with a GPS tracker.

Turning around, Phil noted that Fitz had disappeared - hopefully making his way somewhere he can set up his station according to plan. Just then, the train speaker informed them first in Italian and then in English, “As we round the bend, the passengers on the North side of the train can take in the views of the famous _Tre cime di Lavaredo_.”

“Eyes on the package,” reported May suddenly, interrupting the speaker. “Fourth cargo car, at the back.”

Coulson looked around to make sure no one was watching him, before answering, “Copy that. Ward, you copy?”

Silence.

“Ward, _do_ you copy?” he repeated.

Still nothing.

“Ward are you in position? Fitz? May?” he whispered frantically. “Fuck, something’s wrong.”

Just as he said that the sound of gunshots came from somewhere at the end of the train where the cargo hold was. “Damn, we’ve been made,” he cursed under his breath, quickly making his way towards the shooting. He waded through the crowds of people that were running in the opposite direction in panic slowly, before finally reaching the first cargo car. With no people obstructing his passage, he quickly managed to find Ward.

“Ward,” he hissed, “What happened?”

“We’ve been made,” grunted the specialist, a gun in his hand. “I managed to hit two of them but-”

They were interrupted by another round of gunfire, though they weren’t sure where it was coming from.

Coulson pulled out his own gun. “Come on, let’s tag the package and- shit!”

This time the gunfire was directly behind them, causing the two agents to run in the opposite direction towards the end of the train. Ward kept shooting at the assailants, while Coulson was just trying not to stumble. When they reached the last car, they realised they were cornered.

“Ward, we have nowhere to go,” Phil hissed at the other agent.

The specialist swore. “That’s the least of our problems, they’ve got a grenade!” he shouted, pushing Coulson back.

They were out of options. “We gotta jump!” the older agent said, opening the door at the end of the car. “Now!”

They jumped, followed by the sounds of gunfire and a small explosion that tore off the back half of the cargo car. They hit the ground hard, the pressure wave knocking them unconscious.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey up! My bad internet connection turned into non-existent in the middle of the week, so I'm bringing you another chapter now that I'm home again :)

Phil came back to consciousness disoriented. His head was splitting with a terrible headache and his whole back felt bruised. What the hell happened? He felt like he had been run over by a stampede of buffaloes. Oh and his ears were ringing.

“Sir?” a sharp voice yelled in his ear. “Sir, wake up!”

Coulson opened his eyes and Ward’s worried face came into view. “Oh god, that hurt,” he complained. “Was that a bomb?”

The specialist shook his head, helping Phil on his feet. “A grenade.”

The older man grunted, pressing his palms to his temples. “The train’s gone,” he noted. “How long have we been out?”

The specialist shrugged, showing Coulson his dead phone. “The blast took out our electronics,” he explained. Then with a worried expression, he continued, “I told Fitz I’d come back for him.”

Phil sighed. “May’s there, he’ll be ok.”

“No, she’s not,” contradicted Ward, bending over to pick something up from the ground and showed the object to Coulson. It was a clasp of May’s SOS parachute.

Coulson stared. “They got to her too,” he concluded. “They knew we were coming.”

Ward huffed. “Yeah, but how?”

“I don’t know,” Phil admitted. “We got to get back to the plane. Come on.”

The two men headed south, away from the tracks, and disappeared between the rows of a vineyard The older agent thought about the whereabouts of his other specialist. If May jumped off the train’s roof and landed somewhere in the vineyard as well, where was she? Why didn’t she help them? She couldn’t have possibly gotten back on the train, could she?

After just a couple of yards of walking, they happened upon an old rusty truck.

“Come on, keys might be in it,” Coulson told Ward who shot him a doubtful look. “What? It’s the country, people are very trusting,” he explained, leading the other man towards the vehicle.

They were in luck because as they came closer, they noticed the engine was running. Ward looked inside to check for keys. “It’s been hot-wired,” he told Coulson.

Phil raised his eyebrows. “That’s-”

“Suspicious?” offered the specialist.

“I was about to say ‘fortuitous’,” he said, getting behind the wheel. “Let’s get out of here.”

Coulson and Ward drove to the Bus as fast as they could manage with the rust bucket of a car they had stolen, the tires screeching as they pulled up to the lowered ramp.

“Skye! Simmons!” Phil called out. “Tell me you’ve heard from May or Fitz?”

The two women ran out, their expressions surprised. “What do you mean?” asked Skye. “I thought they were with you? What happened?”

“They knew we were there, we had to abort,” explained Ward with a deep frown on his face. “Fitz is still on the train.”

Simmons paled. “Oh no, Fitz! He can’t take care of himself, what if they hurt him?”

“As long as he keeps his head down,” Ward told her, “he’ll be fine.”

Coulson nodded in agreement. “Do we have a way of finding him?” he asked the girls. “The train’s gone, Fitz’s gone, May’s gone and we weren’t even able to tag the package.”

Skye jogged over to her laptop. “I can try and track his GPS equipment but I don’t want to get your hopes up - it was designed to be invisible. Our best chance is if Fitz turns the GPS on his computer on.”

Phil sighed. “And May? Can you track her phone or something?”

Skye went to type something on her computer but before she could actually do anything, the Bus’ system came alive and Russo’s face appeared on the screen. The Italian was out of breath, his face bruised.

“Signore Russo, what happened?” he asked the man.

Russo looked relieved. “Agent Coulson, thank god. I’ve been trying to reach you. We’ve been attacked!”

Coulson sighed, not really surprised. “So have we,” he told the officer. “Half of my team is unaccounted for.”

“Most of my men are dead!” Russo sneered. “Where are you now?”

“On our plane,” Phil told him. “We’ll send you the coordinates.”

After Russo hanged up, Coulson turned to Skye. “Anything?”

The girl shook her head. “May’s phone is either broken or off, I can’t get a signal.”

Phil let out a frustrated breath. “And the train? Can you find out where it is?”

“I pulled satellite images,” she told him. “The train’s gone off tracks. I’m checking alternate routes right now. If it’s somewhere on Earth we’ll find it.”

The team leader smiled halfheartedly at the joke. This mission had gone so wrong so quickly, he would be surprised if anything good happened for the rest of the day. “Keep searching,” he told Skye. He then turned to Ward. “Can you fly a plane?”

The specialist gave him a confused look. “Sir?”

Phil shrugged. “I’m asking just in case. May can take care of herself but if she doesn’t find her way back here, we’ll need a pilot.”

Ward nodded, face serious. “I can work the controls,” he assured Coulson. “Just don’t expect any complicated maneuvers of me.”

The two men then fell into a tense silence, standing still in the middle of their cargo hold. They stayed silent for over five minutes, at which point they got interrupted by a car arriving. Phil looked up to see a bloody Russo getting out of the car.

“Coulson. Grant,” the Italian greeted them, limping awkwardly up the ramp. “It’s gonna be all right, the train is-” he choked on his words as if the breath had been punched out of him, his face going slack. Before Coulson could even wonder what happened to him, Russo tipped forward with a gurgle and face-planted on the ground, a knife handle sticking out of his back.

Just for a second, Coulson thought that the terrorists had found them but then he looked up and came face to face with a bloodied and a very pissed off looking May.

“Wheels up in five,” she growled, jaw tight.

“May,” he said, confused. “Russo was- explain yourself, please.”

The Chinese specialist gritted her teeth. “Russo sold us out,” she explained. “He had been working with the terrorists all along.” It was then that Phil noticed the gun in the dead man’s hand - Russo had probably been prepared to kill them and only May’s good aim with a throwing knife had stopped him.

“Get the plane ready,” continued the injured woman, wiping at the blood on her collarbone. “I need a shower.”

Ward narrowed his eyes at her in concern. “You’re hurt, let me stitch you up.”

“I said,” she sneered at him, unappreciative of his worry, “get the plane ready.” And with another pissed off look at the now-dead Italian, she headed off to shower.

Ward, cowed by May’s temper, went to get the Bus flight ready, while Coulson spent the next two minutes getting rid of Russo’s body. It was disappointing that the man had been lying to them all this time. Phil felt like everyone was constantly against him, lying to him, betraying him.

“Sir?” came Sky’s excited voice from inside the lab. “I found the train. It switched tracks not long after you got off. I’m tracking it.”

He nodded. “Good. Keep on it, I’ll go and check on May.”

“Ok.”

Coulson made his way to the Asian’s bunk, finding the woman sitting on her bed as she tended to her wound. Well, she was attacking the large gash above her collarbone with a surgical needle and threat.

“Hey, give it to me,” he told her. “I’ll sew it up.”

She sighed but let him take the needle from her hand.

“Skye found the train. Turns out it switched tracks shortly after we got off.”

May snorted. “You mean after you jumped off and knocked yourselves unconscious? I saw you guys out cold on the field, you looked ridiculous.”

“You left us there,” Phil complained.

“I went to get us a car,” she explained, “but Russo and his men got to me before I could return for you. I didn’t want to lead them back to you.”

Coulson hmmed in understanding. “How did you escape then?”

May shrugged, jostling her injured shoulder and hissing.

“This is a stab wound, isn’t it?” he asked.

She nodded. “He tied me up and then stuck a knife into me when he tried to torture me.”

Phil snorted. Well, that had been pretty stupid of the Italian officer - he literally gave May a weapon to get herself out of her ties and attack his team with. He was lucky he had gotten out of there alive, though in the end the Asian specialist caught up to him anyway. “I see,” he said before sighing. “This wasn’t supposed to be a combat op.”

May raised her eyes to his. “Fitz’ll be fine. He can handle himself.”

Coulson bit his lip, finishing with May’s wound. “That’s it, done,” he told her as he helped her put her tank top strap back into place.

“Thank you.”

“Did he get you anywhere else?” he asked.

May raised her eyebrow at him as if to ask if he was serious. Right, as if she would let Russo land more than just one hit.

Their staring contest was interrupted by Ward knocking on the wall next to May’s bunk. “The train stopped suddenly in the Italian countryside, we need to get going.”

May nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

Ward shook his head. “Don’t bother,” he told her, voice cold. “I’ll get us in the air.”

May huffed but let the other specialist leave without a fight.

Phil gathered up the sewing kit. “Do you have any pain killers?”

She gave him a blank look.

“Right. I’m going to put this back in the medicine cabinet and bring you something for the pain,” he said resolutely, turning around and making his way downstairs.

When he came back up, he could hear Skye’s voice coming from May’s bunk. “...told me that you were helping to, you know, find my parents,” she was saying. “So thanks.”

Silence.

“Right, I can say you’re really into this,” the girl said sarcastically.

“What do you want?” May asked, voice tight, and Phil wondered if he should step in and save Skye from the older woman’s wrath. A pissed off and hurt Melinda May wasn’t nice.

“Ok, I got it. You don’t actually want to help me,” Skye said, her voice defensive. “But I didn’t ask, ok? Coulson told-”

“Coulson doesn’t know how to tell you ‘no’,” interrupted May. “The truth is, you have to decide why you’re here. We have a mission, and it’s not to find your parents - it’s to find Fitz!”

“I know but-” Skye piped up, sounding on the verge of tears.

“If you can’t put aside your personal attachments, then you shouldn’t be here!”

Ouch, thought Phil as a hysterically crying Skye ran past him, locking herself in her own bunk. He was suddenly regretting not stepping in.

“May?” he called out softly as he approached the furious woman’s bunk.

She turned her fiery eyes at him. “I’m not gonna apologise,” she grunted, taking the painkillers he’d brought her and dry swallowing them.

Coulson just sighed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pfew... this had been a challenge to write. I hope you like the chapter :)

The Bus landed a couple hundred yards away from where the train had stopped in the middle of nowhere. When they arrived at the tracks, they could see the whole place was crawling with confused passengers.

“Fitz?” Simmons called out, weaving her way through the crowd, while Ward went to talk to the local authorities who had been called by the distraught passengers.

“Fitz!” Skye yelled, joining the biochemist in search for their missing colleague. “Fitz! You here?”

May walked up to Phil, stopping by his side. “The passengers claim three cars were waiting here for the train - they drove away quickly after loading their car with some of the train’s cargo.”

Phil nodded in acknowledgment. “Any sign of Fitz?”

The specialist shook her head.

“Skye!” Coulson called. “Keep trying to track Fitz’ equipment. Ward, you try and see how far you can follow the tire tracks of their cars.”

May looked at him. “What about me?”

“You go and get yourself a gun,” he ordered her.

“Phil,” she protested. “If I-”

He interrupted her. “I have a bad feeling about this, May. Please go and get a gun. Or two,” he added after a moment of consideration.

Seeing he was serious, the Chinese woman didn’t complain any further and just turned on her heel to head back to their car and get herself some firearms. Coulson immediately felt better - Melinda May was dangerous enough using just her fists and legs but put a gun in her hand and her quick reflexes and exact aim made her completely deadly.

“He’s online!” Skye suddenly called out, excited. “Fitz turned on the GPS locator, I can finally track him!”

Phil rounded up his team quickly. “Get a move on, people. We need to find Fitz. Skye, you navigate. May, I want you behind the wheel.”

Once everyone piled into their SUV, they sped off in the same direction the tire tracks Ward had been tracking led. Phil didn’t think it was a coincidence and a heavy feeling settled in his stomach. It didn’t take them long to reach their destination - a pompous-looking villa with a high fence running around it. Fitz was nowhere to be seen.

“Skye! Where the hell is he?”

The girl looked around cluelessly. “I don’t know, he’s probably hiding somewhere.”

Coulson motioned to Skye’s laptop. “Can’t you find out? Come on, Skye, work with me!”

May put a calming hand on his shoulder. “I can get in and take a look around,” she offered.

Phil shook his head. “Not yet. I need to know what we’re walking in first - if he’s inside, I don’t want to put him in danger.”

The specialist gave him an offended look, as if she would ever endanger another agent’s life, but didn’t comment. Coulson turned to Skye impatiently. “So?”

“He’s inside,” the young hacker finally said. “It looks like he’s in the parking lot in front of the villa.”

Phil nodded. “Maybe he’s in one of the cars - that might be how he got here,” he theorised. “Let’s gear up and go inside. Skye, Simmons - you stay here and keep the engine running, we might need to leave quickly.”

“Sure thing, AC,” Skye acknowledged with a lazy salute.

Coulson, Ward and May armed themselves to their teeth and then stealthily made their way over the tall fence and sneaked over to the parking spaces. “Fitz?” Coulson hissed, looking into one of the cars. Meanwhile, Ward and May did the same with the other three cars parked in front of the villa.

“I have something here,” whispered Ward. “It looks like Fitz’ equipment.”

Phil walked over, looking through the window the specialist was standing at. “Yeah, that’s his. You think maybe he never came here at all?”

“Oh he was here,” May informed them from where she was standing next to a privacy hedge, pointing at the ground. “There’s blood here.”

“Shit,” Coulson muttered under his breath. “We need to get inside.”

May pointed at a second floor window. “I have a way.”

Phil heaved a long sigh. He hated climbing. “Fine, you two go in first - I’m a little rusty, so I’ll bring up the back.”

The two specialists immediately went to climb the wall, making the whole endeavour look easy, while Phil panted and gasped and grunted after them slowly. He was really out of shape, he thought.

“ _ Clear _ . Clear,” the two specialists reported just as Phil was squeezing himself through the damned window. “Good,” he breathed out. “Let’s go find Fitz.”

The three agents moved quietly down a wide hallway - Ward and Coulson with their guns drawn, while May kept hers still in the holster. Phil supposed that was good enough. They checked the rooms on either side of them, looking for their wayward scientist.

When they finally found someone though, it was a kid dressed in a military uniform, an AK-47 clasped in his hands as he stood guard at the end of the hallway. Jesus Christ, he couldn’t have been more than fourteen - what sort of organisation were these people running here?

May sneaked up behind the boy and, with a quick maneuver, disarmed him. He didn’t have time to even make a sound before he was being held in a chokehold, slipping into unconsciousness.

Coulson sighed in relief. “He’s just a kid,” he whispered.

May tightened her jaw. “A kid with a gun.”

Before they could say any more, Ward motioned for them to be quiet. They all stood and listened for any sounds of movement. They didn’t have to wait long - a guy in the same uniform as the subdued kid was walking around the corner. Knowing that not even Melinda could get to him, before the soldier started shooting, Phil ordered his specialists to “Fire!”

Ward reacted quickly, putting a bullet in the man’s chest before the he got the chance to even raise his rifle. The assailant crumbled to the floor with a wet gurgle as blood flooded his lungs.

“They know where we are now,” Ward said. “We need to move!”

The trio hurried down the hallway, opening doors left and right, trying to clear as many rooms as possible. They heard people shouting, feet stomping on the stairs and guns being loaded. Coulson wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers.

They reached a big hall with ancient Greece-style columns and Ward motioned for May to go to the left, while he’d go right. Coulson decided to follow the female specialist. A few seconds later, the spacious room began filling with more AK-47 armed soldiers - some of them no older than thirteen - and began shooting.

“Don’t shoot to kill,” he ordered his team as they returned fire, unwilling to let them kill children.

“Copy that,” answered the two specialists in unison.

The soldiers clearly had different orders though, thought Coulson as a bullet lodged itself in one of the columns, only a couple inches from his head. That was the second time in as many weeks.

After almost twenty seconds of uninterrupted fire, Ward asked through the comms, “Can you keep them occupied? I can go and look for Fitz as long as their attention is diverted.”

Phil exchanged a nod with May, before answering, “Go and find him. We got this.”

No one was more surprised than him when it turned out they really did got it. While the assailants were many and heavily armed, they clearly hadn’t been properly trained because their shots more often than not went wide. On the other hand, May had a great aim and Phil found that even he had gotten much better from the last time he had to shoot - maybe it really was like riding a bike.

It wasn’t even five minutes later when he felt they had the situation more or less under control. They had killed a number of soldiers, though Phil was happy to notice none of them were the kids.

“I found him,” Wards voice spoke in his ear. “He’s got a wound on his head and probably a concussion but is otherwise unhurt. I think they were saving him for later.”

“Good,” muttered Coulson. “Let’s get out of here then. I don’t want to be here when their backup arrives.”

The three specialists agreed and began to retreat. Ward reported that he and Fitz were grabbing anything and everything that could be of some use to them - papers, blueprints, vials, used cotton swabs and such.

The four of them met outside, sounds of gunfire still following them from inside the villa. “Come on, let’s get a move on,” Coulson ordered as they ran back to their SUV.

They were almost there, when a group of soldiers appeared from behind the house, opening fire and forcing them to back away. “Damn it!” swore Ward as they hid behind a short stone wall. “We need to get out of here.”

“No kidding,” snorted Fitz, who except for the dried blood on his temple looked to be completely fine. Lucky guy.

Ward sneered. “I’m serious, the house is rigged to blow,” he explained, pointing out a couple soldiers installing explosives at the corner of the building.

Fitz squinted, trying to focus his gaze on what the men were doing. “Those are remote controlled,” he told them. “Why would they need remote control? They won’t be able to get far away enough not to be caught in the blast.”

Ward swore again. “They won’t,” he agreed, “but  _ he _ will.” Coulson looked to where the specialist was pointing and saw one of the kid soldiers running away from the house, a bulletproof case in one hand, AK-47 in the other. “He looks twelve,” exhaled Fitz in shock. “He’s a little boy.”

Coulson steeled himself for what he new had to be done. “Yeah but he’s old enough to blow us to smithereens,” he said, checking his magazine. “Cover me, I’ll go and stop him.”

May grabbed his arm. “No, Phil. I’ll do it.”

He gaped at her. “What? No way! I’m not letting you-”

She looked straight into his eyes, interrupting him, “I can do this, Coulson. No one else needs to have this on their conscience.”

He inspected her face carefully and, seeing only determination, he acquiesced. “Ok, go.”

May stood up, trusting the other agents to cover her and ran full speed after the kid. Phil hoped there was a chance she wouldn’t have to kill him but knew it was only wishful thinking - the boy had a Kalashnikov in hand and a mission to complete. He hated putting Melinda in this position but it was as she said - no one else needed to have killing a child on their conscience if she was willing to sacrifice herself and go through it  _ again _ .

He must’ve been distracted by thinking about what happened in Bahrain, because he was surprised when Ward suddenly fell down next to him. “Ouch!” the specialist hissed, clutching at his shoulder. “One of those idiots managed to hit me.”

“Is it bad?” Coulson asked but before the younger man could answer, he heard Skye call out, “Grant!” as she left the SUV.

“Skye!” he shouted at her. “Get back!”

But it was too late. She was running towards them when the soldiers spotted her and started shooting at her. Ward ran out to cover her despite his bleeding arm but couldn’t prevent her from getting shot.

“We need to get her out of here,” Ward reported. “She’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Take her to the SUV,” Phil ordered, opening fire again. “We can’t leave till we get a word from May that the detonator has been neutralised.”

Ward dragged an unconscious Skye to their car, where Simmons could provide first aid. “She’s dying Coulson. We need to evacuate now!”

Just then Melinda’s breathless voice came through, “It’s done, I have the case.”

Coulson acknowledged it with a “Copy that.” before yelling out, “Move out, move out!”

They all piled quickly into their bulletproof SUV, getting shot at all the while but no one else getting hit, and sped off. They picked up May on the way, the woman’s face sombre and splattered with blood, and then raced back towards their plane. They needed to get out of this godforsaken country and find Skye some help.

And to think that Coulson had believed the day couldn’t get any worse.


	13. Chapter 13

They all watched as the team of surgeons behind the glass worked on Skye. They had arrived at the hospital in the nick of time, Skye’s heart barely beating. 

“She’s so pale,” commented Simmons in a soft voice, eyes not leaving their friend’s still form.

Ward clenched his fists. “I should’ve done something,” he muttered. “This is my fault.”

Coulson shook his head, ignoring the pain the movement caused. “How? What could you have done? She was supposed to stay inside that damned car.”

Ward turned to him, sneering. “She wasn’t supposed to be there at all! What sort of operation are you running here, Coulson? This is a counter-terrorist unit, not a kindergarten!”

Fitz stepped in between them. “Calm down, gentleman,” he told them quietly. “This is not helping Skye.”

They were all quiet for a moment before the silence was interrupted by one of the surgeons coming out. “We pulled out the bullets,” she informed them. “But she’s lost a lot of blood and slipped into a coma. The next forty eight hours will be critical.”

May, who had been her usual quiet and stoic self till then, punched a wall at that news - leaving a fist-sized dent in the plaster.

Phil looked at the doctor. “And you can’t do anything for her?”

The woman shook her head. “All we can do is wait.”

Coulson let out a long breath. “Thank you, doctor,” he forced himself to say despite not feeling very grateful. He then walked over to May who was still clenching her fist. “You ok?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Frustrated.”

“You know,” he began hesitantly. “It’s ok to be feeling guilty after what you said to her.”

“I’m not.”

Coulson gave her a disbelieving look. “May.”

“I am not,” she said forcefully. “I only told her what you were too soft to say out loud.”

He crossed his arms. “Now, that’s not fair. I  _ do _ want to help her find her parents. She deserves to know where she comes from.”

Melinda raised her eyebrows. “Really? Are you sure?” she asked him. “You read the file, Phil, S.H.I.E.L.D. had to send agents to save her  _ from _ where she comes from.”

Coulson shook his head, the movement causing a sharp pain in his temples. There was no talking to May when she was being like this and his ever present headache wasn’t helping the situation. He was therefore glad when his phone chose that moment to ring, interrupting the conversation.

His relief was short-lived. “Coulson,” came Hill’s voice from the other end of the line. “I need you at the Hub. We’re under attack. The whole place is in shambles and Fury’s missing!”

Phil blanched. “What? How- I mean, how is that possible?”

The answer was chilling, “Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and is trying to take over the Hub. Their agents are juiced up on something, I’ve never seen anything like it. They’re like superhuman or something - only a bullet between the eyes can reliably stop them.” She paused, a loud bang echoing from somewhere on her end, before continuing, “The problem is we still don’t really know who we can trust and who’s a traitor, so we’re fighting a losing battle. I can’t ever be sure who’s listening in, so the less we talk the better. I’m going dark on communication, Phil, you should too. Be careful.”

Coulson nodded. “Of course. We’re on our way,” he promised.

He then turned to his worried team. “There’s an emergency at the Hub. A terrorist organisation named Hydra had infiltrated our ranks and is trying to overthrow S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he explained. “I’ll tell you more once we’re in the air.”

“But what about Skye?” Fitz protested. “We can’t just leave her!”

Ward gave the engineer a look. “It’s not like we’re any useful here. We’ll be more of a help out there, fighting Hydra.”

Coulson nodded. “I agree. We need to get moving,” he ordered, before reconsidering, “Simmons can stay here hough, I don’t really feel comfortable taking her into a combat zone anyway, not after what happened with Skye.”

The biochemist nodded enthusiastically. “What a good idea! That way I can let you know if anything changes.”

“No,” the team leader denied. “We’re going dark on communication, you never know who’s listening. We’ve been encountering roadblock after roadblock this whole time - whoever’s feeding Hydra information is good, no need to help them in any way.”

The whole team looked disturbed at the news. “Do you think someone we know might be Hydra?” asked a worried Simmons.

Colson gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid it’s more than probable. People we’ve worked with for years, colleagues, even friends - anyone can be Hydra. I suggest you don’t trust anyone.”

May narrowed her eyes at all of them. “Not even the team,” she concluded ominously.

Phil shook his head. “We need to trust  _ someone _ , May, otherwise we won’t get anything done. Now let’s get a move on,” he finished, motioning his team - sans Skye and Simmons - to leave. May moved first, having to prepare the Bus for their flight over the Atlantic, with Phil and Ward following closely behind. Fitz went last, exchanging a few last words with Simmons.

It didn’t take them long to get in the air. The mood on the Bus was sombre, nobody talking unnecessarily, but Coulson knew he had to have a chat with the team. It was time to tell them about his suspicions regarding Hydra and their involvement in their cases. “Command Center in five,” he spoke over the intercom, rubbing his temple. He was getting seriously tired of the headaches - every time he got under the slightest bit of stress, the pain appeared.

He swallowed a couple painkillers, washing them down with water, before leaving his office. It was time to put all the cards on the table.

Five minutes later, when his people were all in the Command Center and he had their attention, he began, “First of all, this team has been created by Director Fury to find out if Hydra was behind the recent rise in terrorist attacks.” He held up a hand when it looked like his team wanted to speak. “I didn’t tell you before because the information was confidential - Fury didn’t want anyone to know in case it got out.”

Ward huffed. “Great, so this whole time we were actually supposed to be tracking Hydra? Why were we investigating stupid lab explosions and 084s?”

Coulson opened his mouth to speak, but Fitz interjected, “The lab belonged to Hydra. I saw the name in Lydon’s computer when I was following the money trail and then again yesterday at the villa.”

Phil nodded. “Yes.”

“So Hydra was the one doing experiments with the steroids?” asked May. “What would they want with it?”

“Remember our talk in my office?” he reminded her. “Hydra is a Nazi organisation - they’re creating an army of super soldiers. Hill mentioned they are already using the serum.”

May frowned. “Great,” she muttered sarcastically.

Phil ignored her, instead continuing his explanation, “Hydra agents had been apparently hiding amongst our ranks for years - posing as our colleagues and friends, while reporting back to a terrorist organisation.

“I first suspected S.H.I.E.L.D. might have a mole years ago, when my mission to catch runaway Nazi officials in South America hadn’t been successful, but I only got more concrete evidence recently. When we found out Mike Peterson had been kidnapped from the Playground only minutes after Mr. Lydon shared the information, I knew something fishy was going on. Hydra had been in position and ready to move before they could’ve heard anything, because they already knew exactly where Mike was.”

“Why would they go to the trouble of hiring Lydon then?” asked Ward.

Phil shrugged. “I suspect they were covering their tracks, trying to make it look like an outside job.”

“Who had access to the information?” questioned May, eyes narrowed.

“Level Eights and up,” Coulson answered her.

“And our team,” added Fitz to everyone’s surprise. “What? We all knew where he was,” he defended.

Phil nodded in acknowledgment. “True. The point is, though, that someone within S.H.I.E.L.D. itself gave Hydra that information.”

“They didn’t get the stabilising agent though,” remarked Fitz. “So they had to steal it.”

Coulson was just about to nod again when something occurred to him. “Wait, something doesn’t add up,” he said with a frown. “The stabilising agent went missing during Reyes’ siege, right? Why would Hydra kidnap Mike Peterson if they already had the serum?”

“Maybe we were wrong. Maybe they needed him for something else?” offered Ward. “What if they tortured him for information?”

“Or maybe,” May spoke up, “the serum went missing later.”

Phil thought about it. “It’s possible,” he allowed. “Simmons didn’t check on the samples until after Mike’s body was found.”

Ward furrowed his brow in thought. “So you think Lydon took it? How? He was handcuffed the whole time he was on the Bus.”

Coulson shook his head. “Not Lydon.”

Everyone went quiet, considering the implications. It was Ward who broke the silence. “Garrett and Trip,” he concluded. “They’re Hydra.”

Fitz nodded in agreement. “Makes sense. Garrett is Level Nine - he has access to all the information he needs.”

“That bastard!” swore Ward. “I trusted him.”

Coulson felt bile rise up in his throat, his headache intensifying. “So did I - he’s been my friend for years. He was one of the people with me in South America.”

May folded her arms across her chest. “What is going to be his next move then? Take over the Hub and then what?”

Everyone turned to Ward. The specialist shrugged. “What? Why are you looking at me?”

“You know him well, Grant,” Phil told him. “What do you think is his aim here? Why take over S.H.I.E.L.D., why not just blow up the Hub?”

The younger man looked devastated. “I don’t know. I still can’t believe he’s Hydra, that two-faced son of a-”

“Maybe he’s not?” suggested Fitz. “Maybe it’s Agent Triplett?”

Phil shook his head. “Trip was upstairs, escorting mr. Lydon, while Garrett and I were in the labs. If anything, Trip might be innocent.”

“Did you notice him take anything?” May questioned him and Coulson tried not to feel offended at the question. Did the woman think that if he did notice, he wouldn’t have done something about it?

“No,” he answered. “The bastard did it right underneath my nose and I didn’t notice a thing.”

There was another moment of silence, interrupted by Fitz this time. “So the men in Italy,” he began. “Those were Hydra too, right? Russo, the kid soldiers, everything.”

Coulson nodded. “Yeah. Hard to believe Garrett is involved in all that.”

“What about Reyes?” piped up Ward. “Was she in on it too? She did want the 084.”

Phil hmmed. “So did you. She might be Hydra but she might have actually just wanted the weapon to deal with the rebels. We might never know,” he concluded. “Now, why don’t we take a break to take all of this in, we’ll meet back here in fifteen.”

His agents agreed. As everyone piled out of the room, May stopped him with a hand on his upper arm. “Are you ok, Phil? I noticed you constantly rubbing at your temples.”

Coulson sighed. “I have a headache, that’s all.”

She shook her head fondly. “Take a painkiller then.”

“I have,” he told her, before admitting, “Two, actually. They don’t seem to have worked.”

“That’s weird,” she frowned. “Has it happened before?”

He was about to deny everything, when he remembered his earlier decision to pull all the cards on the table. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I’ve been having headaches on and off ever since I came back from Tahiti. They seem to get worse with stress, so you can imagine what my head is like now,” he finished with a weak smile.

Melinda looked concerned. “Have you told anyone else? Simmons? Or a doctor?”

Phil shook his head. “Nothing anyone can do about it now. Come on, why don’t we sit down and have a cup of tea? I have Sencha green,” he offered.

She smiled at him. “Sure. I just have to stop by the cockpit to check on everything but I’ll be right back.”

“Ok,” he agreed, squeezing her arm fondly, before making his way to the lounge room.

He hadn’t been there for two minutes when a frazzled Fitz appeared. “Sir? Sir!” he whispered, looking around nervously. “I wasn’t doing anything, I swear,” he began babbling, “but I wanted to let Simmons know what was going on because what if Garrett contacted her and she didn’t know not to trust him and then she would-”

“Fitz!” Phil interrupted the panicky scientist. “What happened?”

“I was trying to tap into a secure line, so I could contact Simmons, because she’s all alone in a-”

“Fitz!”

The engineer took a deep breath. “Sir? Why would… why would May have an unauthorised encrypted hard line leading up to her cockpit? It isn’t in any of the plane’s specs.”

Coulson felt his stomach sinking. “What? An encrypted hard line?”

“Yeah,” nodded the Scotsman. “Dedicated to one receiver. She’s not supposed to have that, who is she talking to? It’s not safe - I actually think that is the reason why the Bus is so easily hacked.”

Phil tightened his jaw, steeling himself. “Cut the line.”

“What?”

“You need to cut the line  right now, Fitz. Do not let her call out!” he told the man.

Seconds after the scientist ran away, the cockpit door opened and May walked out. Phil noticed she still had a gun in her holster from yesterday’s shootout at the villa, so he pulled out his own firearm.

“Put down your gun,” he told his friend who was looking at him in confusion. “Put it down!” he repeated.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably the most different from canon. I hope you like that changes I made :)

“Phil,” May said softly, raising her hands in surrender. “What’s going on?”

He sneered at her, disgusted at the betrayal. “You tell me,” he spat. “Fitz found the encrypted hard line leading up to your cockpit.”

He could see the realisation and guilt on the Asian’s face. “It’s not what you think, Coulson.”

“Put down that damned gun!” he yelled at her, attracting the attention of Fitz and Ward who came running in. “Put it down and tell me what the hell is going on right now!”

She hesitated. “I-”

“Now!”

“I can’t,” she told him, her voice breaking with emotion, before she pulled herself together. “Listen, I can explain. But not here.”

Coulson was livid. “Why not here? You have to check with someone first? Who’s on the other end of that damned line, May?” he questioned, his patience running out. He didn’t want to shoot her and he would hate to be forced to do it.

“I can’t say,” the Chinese woman insisted.

Phil let out a humourless chuckle. “That’s ok, I think I know,” he told her. “You’re Hydra.”

She opened her mouth, most likely to deny the accusation, but Coulson didn’t let her speak. “You know I always wanted my own team?” he continued. “But so far it’s been one huge disappointment. I feel like I’ve been playing a game of _Whack A Mole_ this whole time.”

Melinda’s black eyes flashed with fury. “I am not the mole!” she implored.

“Oh yeah?” he said sarcastically. “If not you then who? Because _someone_ had been feeding Hydra information. Now, drop the damned weapon!”

She finally moved her hands, slowly reaching into her holster. Phil could see Ward pulling out his own gun and aiming it at May from the corner of his eye.

“Drop it and kick it over to me,” he instructed his former friend. When she did as she was told, he threw a pair of handcuffs to her. “Here, cuff yourself.”

As May went to put on the handcuffs, he sneered, “Behind your back! Do you think I’m stupid?”

The specialist gave him a pleading look as she secured her own wrists behind her. Phil knew that she was still dangerous and that if she really wanted to get out of them, she could, but he thought she wouldn’t try anything. Not until they arrived at the Hub, at least.

“Ward, take her to the interrogation room,” he told the man who was still aiming a gun at Melinda’s head. “Fitz, you go and try to find out who she’s calling.”

Both men moved to follow their orders, Ward tugging at May’s arm harshly. “You’re good,” he told her with a shake of his head. “I mean, I always heard you were good, but you were playing us this whole time.

“I wasn’t playing anyone,” she growled at him. “I had your backs.”

“And reported on us behind them,” the male specialist concluded as he closed the interrogation room door behind her.

Coulson let out a heavy sigh. He couldn’t believe it - first Garrett and now May. Who would betray him next? His own mother? He closed his eyes briefly to get himself to focus despite his aching head, before opening them again and striding determinedly inside the interrogation room.

“Talk,” he said before he even sat down opposite May. “Why do you have an encrypted hard line?”

She sighed in resignation. “It was a dedicated channel to Director Fury,” she informed him. “That’s the truth.”

Coulson was surprised. “Fury? You were reporting to him? On what?”

She shook her head. “I’m under orders not to tell you. Call him, he’ll tell you himself.”

“No he won’t,” he told her coldly. “Fury’s gone missing, God knows if he’s even still alive. It’s just me and you left, so you better explain.”

She cleared her throat. “Ok,” she agreed softly. “Fury- he knew you’d want me to join up. He asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Looking for what?” Phil asked, exasperated.

“Signs of physical or mental deterioration - headaches, mood swings, problematic vision, muscle tremors…”

Coulson stared at his former friend. “But why?”

“Phil,” she whispered, making him wince at the familiarity of it. “You weren’t dead for a couple of seconds, or even minutes. You were dead for almost an hour. They managed to restart your heart in the end but the doctors said you’d be brain damaged.” She paused, taking a shuddering breath. “Then you woke up, weak and tired but otherwise healthy. Fury was worried some of the damage might still reveal itself and you’d end up going off the deep end.”

“And you knew this the whole time?” Coulson asked incredulously, unable - or unwilling - to believe that his best friend could keep something like that from him. “How could you do that to me? After all we’ve been through, the years we spent together in ops.”

“Fury said it was essential you couldn’t know. The doctors were worried that if you were aware of what really happened, your brain might not handle it.”

He wasn’t listening to her excuses though. “How could you?” he repeated. “The time I spent sifting through the ashes with you in Bahrain after you had been forced to kill that little girl - I helped you pick yourself up, I gave you a second chance when I assembled this-”

“ _I_ assembled this team!” she interrupted. “ _I_ evaluated what was needed, and I gave the assessment to Fury, and he gave you the parameters for your unit.”

He gaped at her as she continued, “But I didn’t do it for Fury. I did it for you, to protect you! You mean a lot to me. When I heard you died-” Her voice broke again. “I’m telling you the truth.”

He believed her. Maybe it was stupid, after everything, but he couldn’t imagine her lying to him like this. Her eyes were full of sadness and desperation - an unusual show of emotion for the stoic specialist - and she was begging him to believe her. He didn’t think he could forgive her for what she did, betraying him like that, but he could sympathise. He knew what it was like to follow orders and not question them - had Fury asked him to report on his team, he would’ve probably done it too.

He got up. “You stay here,” he told her, careful not to let any of his feelings colour his voice. “You might be of some use to us once we land at the Hub.” And with those words, he left.

 

Ward landed the plane two hours later, the Bus smoothly touching down on the Hub’s helipad. They were immediately encountered by a group of agents with rifles in their hands, the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on their uniforms blacked out. Hydra had clearly managed to take over and Coulson’s team fell right in their laps.

“Do you think we could negotiate with them?” asked Fitz, throwing his boss a hesitant look. “Maybe if May spoke to them? You know, vouched for us?”

Phil shook his head. “Wouldn’t help. She might’ve betrayed me but she is not Hydra.”

“How can you be so sure?” the scientist questioned insistently.

The older man shrugged. “I just now.”

Suddenly, a tinny voice coming through a megaphone filtered in from the outside, “Come out, Phil,” Garrett called out, stepping in front of his men. “I’m not gonna hurt you and your little friends. I just have a few questions,” he promised.

Phil snorted. “Yeah, so do I,” he murmured. He then turned to his people. “Do you see a way out of here that doesn’t include running straight into Garretts hands?” he asked them.

Ward shrugged. “We can just fly away again.”

Coulson shot him a disbelieving look. “And have them shoot us out of the sky? Besides, we have people here - friends - not everyone is Hydra and those still faithful to S.H.I.E.L.D. are in danger.”

Fitz hesitated. “Uh, we might still need May for this. She knows this plane the best,” he advised.

Ward scowled. “We can’t trust her, sir,” he warned.

Coulson considered this. “Bring her out of interrogation,” he ordered, before adding, “Keep her cuffed though.”

The specialist didn’t look happy about this but went to do as he was told. He returned quickly, dragging a reluctant May with him.

Coulson looked at the miffed woman. “Is there a way to get out of this plane without them noticing?” he asked, pointing at the Hydra agents outside.

May looked at the armed agents, then at Phil. “How? We’re surrounded.”

Coulson nodded. “I know, but you know this plane through and through. Is there something we can do to gain advantage? Like shoot them or something?”

The Asian shook her head. “Not without blowing up the whole rooftop. Do we know what sort of arsenal they have?”

“We have to assume they have access to everything in the Hub,” he explained.

May went quiet, looking deep in thought. Ward snorted next to her. “She’s stalling, sir.”

Phil shushed him with a gesture of his hand, waiting for Melinda to come up with something. Despite her betrayal, he still had faith she would help them.

“We could use the engines,” she said slowly, unsure. “We put them on full blast and send a burst of air their way, it might buy us enough time.”

Phil nodded, not having a better idea. He turned to Fitz. “Can you do that?”

May furrowed her brows. “I can-”

“No!” he interrupted her. “ _You_ are going to be on the ramp, standing with me in the line of fire. I don’t trust you to be alone in the cockpit.” Then, ignoring the hurt look on her face, he continued, “If Fitz doesn’t know how, you explain it to him.”

She pressed her lips tightly together for a second, composing herself, before turning to the scientist. “You have to balance out the thrust,” she told him. “Turn two engines towards Garrett and two the other way. Otherwise you lose control over the plane. And make sure the remaining two are turned off.”

Coulson waited for the Scotsman to nod in understanding, before giving out his instructions, “Fitz, Ward - I want you to arm yourself. We’ll leave the plane by the emergency exit behind the cockpit and quickly make our way over to the west corner of the roof - there’s a fire escape staircase there. Be careful to avoid our jet engines,” he reminded them.

“What about me?” asked May. “I can help you.”

Phil gave her a cold stare. “You might be useful, so you’re coming with us, but you’re staying in the cuffs. Try not to fall off the roof,” he spat, watching another flash of hurt cross the Chinese woman’s face. Good - he was still hurting too.

Two minutes and five taunts from Garrett later, everyone was ready to go. Fitz performed the engine stunt perfectly, blowing the group of rogue agents several yards back, thus giving them enough time to make it to the fire escape. Despite his earlier comments, Coulson kept a hand on May’s upper arm to help her keep her balance on the rickety stairs.

They ran down several flights before Hydra collected themselves and started raining bullets on them from above.

“Get inside,” Coulson ordered his team, shoving May through an open window on the thirty-seventh floor of the Hub. A second later, he could hear a shot ring out in the room, followed by a dull thump. He hurriedly climbed after May, finding her uninjured, standing calmly over an unconscious man who was still clutching a gun in his hand. He sighed in relief. “See? You’re fine even with the handcuffs,” he told her, earning himself a furious look.

“Come on, we need to find where they’re holding the hostages,” he said when everyone was safely inside.

“What makes you think he has any? He probably killed them all,” mumbled Fitz, frightened eyes twitching.

Coulson refused to comment. He refused to believe that all of his colleagues and friends were dead. “Come on. Ward, you take point,” he said. “I’ll bring up the back.”

 

In the end, they didn’t get far. There were a lot more Hydra agents that they had expected and they soon ran out of ammunition. After that it was only a matter of time before the juiced up terrorists overpowered them. They tied all of their hands in front of them - except for May who had already been handcuffed, of course - and dragged them into the main Control Room. Garrett was already waiting for them, a group of people Coulson had never seen before standing beside him.

“Phil!” Garrett exclaimed with a big grin on his face. “How good of you to finally come and see me. And you brought your friends. Look, it’s the Cavalry herself!”

The team leader huffed. “Why are you doing this, John?”

His former friend chuckled, a mad glint in his eye. “I want to ruin S.H.I.E.L.D. just like it’s ruined me. I want to proclaim this beautiful organisation a terrorist group and then watch it destroy itself. And if I create a super army while doing that, all the better.”

“Why?” Phil asked again. He was completely confused as to Garrett’s intentions.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. took something important from me,” he explained. The woman who stood next to John - an Asian woman dressed in a lab coat - put a calming hand on his shoulder. Garrett turned to her, smiling. “This is Jiaying,” he told Phil. “You might have heard of her as ‘the Doctor’ - she’s the one who invented the serum.

“Jiaying and I got married almost twenty years ago. We were happy, you know? She got pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful little girl and then... then S.H.I.E.L.D. came and took her away from us. They took her and hid her so well I could never find her even with my clearance. Not even torturing that woman that took her got me anywhere.”

Phil saw the Hydra agents glancing curiously at their leader, but he could feel the pieces of puzzle sliding together. “How is any of this gonna help you find her?” he asked the mad agent.

Garrett scowled. “There’s only one man that knows where my Daisy is and _you_ , Phil, are going to tell me where he is.”

“Director Fury,” Coulson guessed.

John shrugged. “I had hoped he’d be here but the old bastard managed to avoid me somehow. But you - you two are close - you’re gonna tell me where he’s hiding or I’m gonna shoot your little agents. One by one.”

“I don’t know where Fury is,” Phil said, not lying. “ _But_ , I do know where your daughter is.”

Garrett’s eyes glinted as Jiaying squeezed her husband’s shoulder tightly. “Where? Where’s my little girl?”

Phil took a deep breath, steeling himself for the mayhem he was sure was about to follow his exclamation. He could see May do the same from the corner of his eye. “She’s in Europe,” he began. “Lying in a hospital in a coma after your men shot her.”

John gaped as Coulson continued, “The girl S.H.I.E.L.D. took away from you, the one Agent Avery protected with her life, the one you call Daisy - she’s Skye.”

“You’re lying,” Garrett breathed, his legs suddenly unstable.

Phil shook his head. “Hunan province,” he told his former friend as evidence he was telling the truth.

Garrett screamed, voice hoarse and ugly, and his face twisted in agony. His agents watched him in startelement.

Knowing it was now or never, Phil rushed at the grief-consumed man, taking a gun out of a nearby agent’s holster on the way and, sliding his bound hands over Garrett’s head, he aimed the gun at the Hydra leader’s temple. “Surrender,” he grunted at the agents. “Or I blow his brains out.”

The agents were hesitant at first but when Phil cocked the gun, finger tightening on the trigger, the men gave up.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to get the situation under control after that. They found a large group of hostages - including Agent Hill and Agent Triplett - being held just a few doors down from where they had been and soon afterwards, the order was restored.

“I’ll personally take him to the Cellar,” Hill said, scowling at Garrett. The Cellar was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s highest security prison, which no one had been ever able to escape from.

Coulson smirked. “You sure you don’t want to send him to the Slingshot? I think I’d much rather see him get thrown into a big furnace than a cell.”

Hill rolled her eyes. “There are still rules we have to follow, Phil. Fury created them for a reason.”

Ward stepped up to them. “If I can,” he addressed Hill. “I’d like to accompany you. Garrett was my SO and he betrayed me - I’d like to see him get locked up and throw away the key.”

Hill nodded. “You’re welcome to join us, Agent Ward.”

The specialist nodded in thanks, glaring at his SO. “I hope you burn in hell, you bastard.”

John smirked at him. “I love you too, Grant.”

Coulson watched Ward pull a disgusted face at the words as Hill led Garrett away. Suddenly, a sharp pain sliced through his temples as a flashback memory assaulted his mind.

“Wait!” he called out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, let's be honest... who saw it coming?


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter :) Thank you to everyone who found the time to read my story, I appreciate it and I hope you enjoyed yourselves :)

“Wait!” he called again, causing Hill and Ward to stop in their tracks. He took a few steps towards them, shaking his head as the memory replayed in his mind. 

_ Phil looked up to see a bloody Russo getting out of the car. _

_ "Coulson. Grant,” the Italian greeted them, limping awkwardly up the ramp. “It’s gonna be all right, the train is-” he choked on his words as if the breath had been punched out of him, his face going slack. _

_ Grant. _ In his mind, he could see Russo saying the word over and over again, right before getting struck down by May’s throwing knife. Why would the Italian traitor call Ward by his first name? Where had he even heard it in the first place?

Phil rubbed at his throbbing temples, unable to concentrate properly. He could remember Ward wanting to shoot Mike Peterson without even talking to him first, Ward arguing the 084 didn’t have to be destroyed. Ward, Ward. Ward. Ward had been the mole all along, he realised.

“You’re Hydra,” he breathed out, eyes intent on the specialist.

The younger man stared at him in confusion. “What?” he asked, disbelief in his voice.

“You’re the mole,” Phil said, sounding more certain now. “You’re Hydra.”

Hill shook her head. “Phil, what are you talking about? I vetted-” she choked off, all of the air leaving her lungs as a result of Garrett barrelling into her, slamming her on the ground. Before anyone else could react, Ward used the distraction to inject himself with something that had been in his pocket. Coulson didn’t even have time to wander what it was, though he could very well imagine, before Ward threw the empty syringe away and started walking towards him.

Oh shit. Phil was so not ready to fight the specialist, especially if the man had drugged himself up with the super serum. He could see Hill scrabbling with Garrett from the corner of his eye, a few other agents rushing to help her. No one was exactly hurrying to help him, though, no one dared to fight a doped up professional killer.

Ward was only a couple feet away from Phil when a dark form suddenly flew past him at lighting speed, knocking into the traitorous specialist and taking him down to the ground. Coulson let out a sigh of relief. No one except Melinda May, he thought to himself, correcting his earlier assessment. He watched as the two rolled on the floor, before noticing something that caused his heart to skip a beat - May had her hands still cuffed behind her back.

Uh oh, she was gonna be pissed about that.

The two specialists threw a couple punches at each other, May being noticeably hindered by her tied hands. Seeing this, one of the more courageous S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stepped towards the grappling duo to help but was immediately forced to retreat by Ward’s leg kicking out, only narrowly missing his throat.

May sneered at the daring agent, “Step back.”

Ward grinned at her, panting slightly. “What? He just wanted to help you.”

She kicked out, hitting the male specialist in the chest with her heel. “I don’t need help,” she grunted as Ward bent over in pain. The Asian didn’t have the upper hand for long, though, because her opponent rammed into her midsection, throwing her on the ground.

She gasped for breath and another agent came closer to try and help her. Ward caught the man’s hand easily, twisting it behind his back till everyone in the room could hear a sickening crack. Damned super strength, thought Coulson, he had just broken the agent’s arm like it was a twig.

May, who had taken the diversion to catch her breath, kicked Ward away from her, pushing him through an open doorway and into the next room. Before anyone knew what was happening, she locked the door behind them, effectively preventing anyone else from interfering. She probably figured one broken arm was enough.

The locked door didn’t stop anyone from seeing what was happening in the room though, since it was made from heavy duty bulletproof glass. It was like watching the TV.

Coulson winced as he saw Melinda getting thrown against a wall, her slight form hitting the hard surface with a loud thud.

“You ready to give up yet?” questioned Ward with a sick smile.

The Chinese agent gave him a withering look from her position on the floor, before pulling herself back up. Ward pounced on her again, grabbing her by the hair. May executed a nice backflip using the wall, slipping the other specialist’s grasp. She avoided the couple punches that followed before kicking out and hitting Ward in the knee, immediately rolling out of the way of the man’s answering kick.

Phil noticed that she was constantly avoiding Ward’s hits instead of blocking them, which was a little unusual for her. He realised it was because of Ward’s drug-induced super strength - if you didn’t let him hit you, his strength was useless.

Ward cracked his knuckles. “Ok, I’m done playing,” he spat. “Let’s finish this for once and for all.” And with those words he started raining punches on the still handcuffed May.

She managed to avoid quite a number of hits but couldn’t escape all of them, receiving a split lip and a sore abdomen as a result. Phil’s stomach twisted. It didn’t look good.

“Unlock the damned room!” he yelled out, feeling like an idiot for not thinking about it sooner.

Hill, who had managed to subdue Garrett again quite easily after catching her breath, shook her head. “I can’t. We’re in lockdown mode - once you close a door, it stays locked.”

He huffed. “Bring us out of lockdown then.”

“Already on it,” she told him. “It’s gonna take a few minutes though.”

Phil felt sick. “Damned woman,” he muttered. “Out of all the idiotic things to do…”

Hill put a hand on his shoulder. “She didn’t want anyone else to get hurt,” she soothed. “This way, if she doesn’t manage to put him down, we can keep him locked in there until that juice stops working.”

Coulson nodded. “Or until someone brings in a gun to put a bullet in Ward’s head.”

Hill winced as May failed to dodge yet another punch. “The armory is also under lockdown, Phil. I’m sorry. All I have is the gun you took off Garrett and that was out of bullets.”

A cry of pain filtered in from the locked room, followed by a soft clattering sound of May’s handcuffs.

Fitz, who had been watching the scene with the rest of them, winced. “Oh my god, she did it again,” he complained. “Why does she keep doing that?”

Hill snorted. “How the hell did she get out of S.H.I.E.L.D. issued handcuffs?”

Coulson watched with pleasure as May finally landed a few very well aimed punches at Ward’s head. “It took her long enough,” he complained.

The dazed specialist stumbled, allowing May to land a kick to his solar plexus and another one between his legs. Fitz winced again as the male specialist let out a howl of pain.

Coulson couldn’t bring himself to feel any sympathy for the hurting man, though.

The painful cry suddenly cut off as Melinda used the side of her hand and hit Ward’s throat with a quick chopping motion. She then finished the man off with a professionally executed roundhouse kick to his face, knocking him out.

Phil sighed. It was finally over.

He watched May slowly lift her head up, her black eyes unfocused. She inspected her right hand, where the remains of the handcuffs still hung off her wrist, with an absent look on her face. Then, huffing in pain, she dropped to her knees in relief.

 

An hour later, the last of Hydra’s members were being escorted off the Hub’s premises and the injured S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were being patched up by the paramedics.

Hill walked up to him. “May told me you found out about Project Tahiti,” she said.

Phil raised an eyebrow. “You even gave it a name?” he asked in disbelief. “You gave my death a name.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Please, we give everything a name. You can bet today’s siege is also getting a nice nickname.”

Coulson chuckled. “Whack A Mole,” he said. “Operation Whack A Mole.”

The female agent raised her eyebrows. “Fitting,” she commented.

“You have no idea,” he told her, sighing. Then, watching May being released by the paramedics and limping away, he said, “I better go and apologise to May. She had to dislocate her thumb because of me.”

Hill followed his gaze. “The Cavalry came to the rescue again,” she commented.

Phil shook his head. “Don’t call her that.”

He knew May hated the nickname. She had received it on the mission in Bahrain after having single handedly taken down sixteen men who had held a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hostage in a secured compound. Unfortunately, she had also been forced to shoot an eight-year-old girl wearing a suicide bomb vest in the process. May had never really gotten over it.

Now, he walked over to her. “You ok?” he asked her.

The Chinese woman nodded, looking exhausted.

“I’m sorry about the cuffs,” he apologised.

She looked up at him, her face unreadable.

“And,” he continued nervously. “I’m sorry I said that thing about you falling off the roof.”

Her mouth twitched in a pitiful excuse for a smile. “I’m sorry too,” she managed to get out, the apology visibly hard for her to express.

He shrugged with a sheepish smile. “I know why you did what you did,” he told her. “I’m still hurt about it but I understand why you did it. Had Fury asked  _ me _ to report on  _ you _ , I would’ve done the same thing.”

She nodded. “When you get your orders, you don’t question them,” she agreed.

“Yeah,” he paused. “Um, speaking of Fury - Fitz is trying to fix the hard line in your cockpit, so you can call out.”

May tilted her head. “You still can’t reach him?”

Phil shook his head. “Maria tried but none of the numbers she has work, your private hard line is our only hope right now.”

She nodded. “I’ll go and check on the Bus,” she told him.

He let her go.

 

It took Fitz barely ten minutes to fix the hard line, so May could call out. Coulson watched her while she was on the phone, listening in to the conversation curiously. She gave the director her report first, informing him of everything that took place at the Hub, and then asked for further instructions. They were told to meet him at the Providence base in Alaska.

Phil shook his head in amusement. “Third time’s the charm, right?” he joked.

May gave him a look.

Coulson grinned. “Come on, May, lighten up. Aren’t you the least bit curious about what that base looks like? I’m starting to feel it’s like the Mrs. Columbo of bases.”

The Asian quickly chased him out of her cockpit after that.

Phil made his way slowly through the plane, descending into the lab. “Fitz?” he addressed the scientist that was messing with one of his gadgets. “Why don’t you call Simmons and tell her what happened? The communication embargo has been lifted.”

The Scotsman jumped up excitedly. “Yes! I’ll go and do that right now. Thank you, sir.”

Phil smiled at the man. “Sure. Tell her she’s been missed.”

Watching the younger man leave the lab, Coulson sighed. He didn’t really know what to do with himself. His team was basically in shambles - Skye was in a coma, Simmons was on the other side of the world, Fitz was distracted without his British friend around to keep him in check, May was still a little pissed at him and Ward was on his way to the Cellar. Oh and he had a big headache on top of all that.

He made his way back upstairs with the intention to lock himself up in his office and sulk, when Fitz intercepted him.

“I spoke to Simmons,” he told him excitedly.

“And?”

“Skye woke up,” he disclosed with a big grin. “She’s gonna be ok!”

Coulson returned the grin, relieved. “That’s great,” he said. Then a thought struck him, “She’s not gonna be all that great when she finds out who her parents are. May was right to warn her off.”

Fitz hmmed. “We should probably go back to Europe, so we can talk to her,” he suggested.

Phil nodded in agreement. “You’re right. I’m gonna go and tell May - it looks like we won’t be making it to Providence after all.”

The scientist chuckled. “She’s not gonna be happy. Good luck, sir.”

Coulson took a deep breath before entering the cockpit. May looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“So,” he began. “I have some good and some bad news.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll turn the plane around,” she said, voice bland.

He grinned at her, sitting down in the empty co-pilot seat. “Head for Paris,” he told her. “Skye’s woken up.”

May narrowed her eyes at him. “ _ I’m _ not telling her,” she announced resolutely. “I told you she wouldn’t like what she found out.”

Phil shrugged helplessly. “Yeah, her parents are probably not winning any parenting awards any time soon.” He then leaned closer to the Asian. “Thank you for your help, by the way,” he whispered.

She smiled, a real smile this time. “Someone has to watch your back. Don’t think I didn’t notice you freeze when Ward charged at you,” she told him, her voice berating but soft.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I do,” she told him. “Whether it was subconscious or not, you knew I would come to help you.”

He nodded, leaning even closer. “Like you always do,” he agreed.

May let out a soft breath, eyes intent on his face, and Phil was just about to lean in the final couple of inches when they got interrupted, “Charlie X-Ray Delta 23215, S.H.I.E.L.D. Control, confirm change of course.”

They both chuckled, Melinda picking up her headset. “Confirming change of course,” she announced. “We’re headed for Paris.”

“Roger that. It should be clear skies for you.”

Phil rested his head against the back of the co-pilot seat, closing his eyes. Clear skies or not, he was suddenly filled with the certainty that they will be fine. He had a great team of people around him, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you enjoyed the story, I'd appreciate if you took the time to comment or at least leave kudos :)


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